In The Land Of Camellias
ALEXANDRA PRADO COELHO
Words
ALEXANDRE DELMAR + MARIA RUIVO
Photography
The delicate metal structure still awaits its walls and roof. It consists only of the lines that shape its contours, standing discreetly among the lush green of the farm in Fornelo, northern Portugal. For the moment, it's just a bare skeleton of a Japanese-style tea house to be, where visitors can taste tea made from plants grown next door, not to mention the chance to understand the infinite subtleties of this drink, in a world made up of art and nature.
Nina Gruntkowski is a German living in Portugal and married to the well-known wine producer, Dirk Niepoort. Both are responsible for the Chá Camélia project, which is the only tea producer on mainland Portugal and the first organic tea producer on mainland Europe. Gruntkowski is thrilled to see such a recent dream come true, which also involves two German friends, the artists Peter Granser and Beatrice Theil.
“This house isn’t just a house, it’s a work of art,” she says. Designed by the Japanese architect Fumihiko Sano and kimono designer Hiroko Takahashi for the Design Miami/Basel 2017 fair, it commemorated the 400th anniversary of the Japanese ceramics company Arita. The pavilion was saved by the Scholten & Baijings design studio, which decided to put it up for auction.
“I was having tea with Peter in Stuttgart when he saw the auction. He said, ‘Nina, we have to do something with that, but I don’t have any space’,” recalls Gruntkowski. In contrast, she had plenty on the Fornelo farm, although her experience of online auctions was limited. After some difficulties, particularly problems transporting the pavilion to Minho, the teahouse began to take shape, next to a leafy plantation that would be its lifeblood.
Nina’s clearly persistent and patient. She may have been the same when working as a radio journalist, or when doing capoeira, which she learned in Brazil. Whatever the case, her six-year saga with tea plants has convinced her how fundamental these qualities really are.
She came across the word camellia when interviewing a Swiss tea specialist. Since then, nothing has been the same. She and Dirk lived in northern Portugal, close to a region known for its camellias (Celorico de Basto being the best example). She wondered whether there might be a connection between these colourful flowers and camellia sinensis, the tea plant? There was. Nina returned home, plant in hand, and excitedly suggested to Dirk that they see how it got on.
One winter later, the tea plant remained healthy and “happy”. The next step involved ordering 200 more and seeing how they developed. First, they planted some in the garden of their Porto residence. Then, with growing confidence, they transported them to the farm in Fornelo, which belonged to Dirk’s parents but where they no longer lived. They were planted in 2014 and the first crop was harvested in 2019.
“We kept all the vegetation that remained on the farm,” says Nina, “We only replaced the vineyard, which was in a poor state, with the tea plants. Over four years we cleared almost a hectare of vines and planted 12,000 tea plants. We’re eight kilometres from the sea and the conditions for camellia sinensis are excellent. We have moderate temperatures, due to the proximity to the sea, with very fertile land and lots of rain.”
They knew they wanted to make green tea and remain laser-focussed on that goal. They travelled around Asia, visiting Japan, Taiwan and China, and absolutely adored the green tea of a Japanese couple, who became an inspiration for Chá Camélia: Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto.
This aside, Nina and Dirk were absolutely convinced: “we never wanted to copy Japan, Taiwan or China. It didn’t make sense to copy what they already do so well. We always wanted to do our best to showcase this area’s own terroir. From the first harvest, our teas have had a very distinctive terroir. Even in blind tastings, we’ve always guessed which is our tea, because it’s so different.”
We’re standing by the tea plants that grow “mega-happily” here, and whose treatment is based solely on biodynamic and permaculture techniques. Chá Camélia is certified organic. Nina emphasises that this is “a good culture for organic farming” and that the good results can be seen in the fertility of the plants, which produce many more seeds than can be used. “Our only enemy are lice, which we repel by spraying the plants with a herb spray. All that remains is making the soil rich.”
“Tea is more than a drink. It’s a philosophy of life”. Knowing this and knowing that “the terroir can easily be ruined by chemicals”, she argues it wouldn’t make any sense to use them.
Most of the leaves are surprisingly tough, and Nina explains that they’re never used to make tea. The focus of the harvest, which begins late May (the pre-harvest phase) with a second phase (summer), is to pick only the youngest and tenderest leaves.
There they are, light green, peeking above the darker foliage. Picked by hand, without scissors, only the delicate stem is broken. “The most complex, tasty teas are those from the first harvest in spring. With these, I can make five or six infusions in a row with the same leaves and it tastes the same. In summer, we only make two.”
This is just the start of a complex process that Nina will explain to us in the tea production room. To understand why this stage is so important, we should recall something Nina told us initially to justify why, as far as we know, there had only been one attempt to make tea on mainland Portugal, near Ponte de Lima: “making tea isn’t just picking the leaf and drying it. It’s not preserving the flavour. If you pick the leaves, dry them and put them in hot water, there’s no flavour. We have to create the flavour ourselves. And what’s incredible is that you can create all kinds of flavours with the same leaf. Creating the flavour of tea is magical.”
For green tea, the most important thing is ensuring the leaf doesn’t oxidise. To do this, Chá Camélia uses the Japanese steaming method (in China they use scalding hot saucepans). The leaves are cooled and placed in a saucepan - “we use a precious, historic one, which was given to us by the Morimoto family, who used it to make their first tea” - for pre--drying, to lose more moisture. After this, they’re rolled and put in another machine. Carefully, it breaks the structure slightly and a little juice is extracted. When the leaf makes contact with oxygen, flavour is created. Then there are two more delicate drying and rolling steps.
Chá Camélia doesn’t do black or white tea, only green. What was a first experiment, the oolong, will be launched this year. For this tea, the leaf has to be semi--oxidised, which is done by using a bamboo container that, when turned “makes small wounds on the leaf edges that oxidise, while the inside stays green”.
Then, it’s time to taste and realise how the green tea plant provides different sensations in different infusions, when made with water at the right temperature and for the right length of time to gently extract the various flavours. Gruntkowski is visibly proud: “I invite you on the journey of the leaf.”
There’s something profound and delicate about the clear liquid that Nina serves us in ceramic bowls, which are also crafted with time and sensitivity. There’s even a good combination between tea and wine in their Pipachá, an oolong aged in old Niepoort port casks that lend the wine’s unique sweetness and complexity.
We also need time and sensibility to understand the nuances released by the green tea leaves and welcomed by the water; a hint of earth and sea, an ancient wisdom that Buddhist monks recognised and preserved in the art of making tea.
Viewed that way, it makes sense that here, on a green farm in the north of Portugal - where, one day, a long time ago, those camellias from distant lands were called rosa do oriente (eastern rose), the name of one of Nina and Dirk’s teas - it should have its own house to introduce itself and show how, through it, we build our relationship with the world, nature and art.
It’s this relationship that Peter Granser and Beatrice Theil forge via the photographs, which create a first moment and the conversations they then have inside the teahouse during their residency in September. That said, after the German artists’ intervention takes place, the life of the Chá Camélia pavilion will continue, inspired by the tender green leaves gently waving in the wind outside. They wait to be picked and reveal the secrets of a special terroir at Europe’s western tip, perched on the edge of the immense Atlantic.
