Rarity

Natural wild camellia forests are almost exclusive to China (Over 90 % of the world camellia forest distribution). Since camellia prefers a cold and wet climate and has high standards for air quality, light, water, temperature, soil and ground temperature, only a few provinces in the southern part of mountainous areas have the right conditions for it to grow. 

Camellia’s growth cycle is much longer than that of average plants. It requires around 5-7 years of growth to reach the age upon which it is mature enough to bear fruit. To reach full fruit bearing capacity it needs more than 15 years. The flowering process is also long as the fruit takes 13 months to mature. After flowering in September the first year, the fruit is not ripe until the October of the following year, which makes fruit production lower than other oil producing plants.

Production is greatly impacted and determined by the weather. If temperatures are too high or there is an over abundance of rain, the production rate goes down. 

Even though the yield is very low, the physical cold press method is the best way of processing to retain all the precious nutrients in the fruit. The amount of oil that can be pressed equates to only 20% of the weight of the seeds. To produce one pound of oil, you would need 4 to 5 pounds of seeds which would come from over 20 pounds of fresh fruit.

On average, approximately 200,000 tons of camellia oil is produced annually in China. 

With all this taken into consideration, camellia really is a rare treasure.