Camellia Japonica - tea and cooking oil

All green tea, white tea, black tea, oolong tea, pu-erh tea are extracted from the Camellia Sinensis plant. So why couldn't one drink the Camellia Sinensis's close relative the Camellia Japonica as a tea? ------- Well, you can.

You can clip the leaves of your Camellia Japonica to make tea and you can make cooking oil from the seeds.

For making the tea you simply select the young light green leaves. You can use the darker green, older leaves as well; however, the leaf age changes the taste of the tea. You want to tip tip prune the plants. Now you can make fresh green tea or process the leaves to make one of the many other teas. Here is a blog I found describing how they made black tea from their Camellia Japonica: Taurus Rising.

Camellia Japonica is also a great source of cooking oil. The oil is also used in beauty products. To make oil you simply shell the seeds and then use a press to extract the oil. I haven't tried the oil out yet for the obvious reason of not having a suitable press readily available. But, I plan to try my Camellia leaves out for tasty (hopefully) cup of tea in the very near future.