Could this be Camellia?

I'm so excited!

Despite the horrid weather this shrub has decided to flower this year for the first time in my knowledge. It came with the house when we moved here 18 years ago. I moved it onto the bank by the path, because it's original position was in the way of something (I can't now remember it was so long ago!)

It has waxy, dark green evergreen leaves about 2 1/2 inch long. Very slow growing - even now it is only about 3 ft tall/diameter. I do have acidic soil and cool damp climate. There are lots of flower buds (!) and the first are starting to open to display this lurid pink colour. I'll try and get another picture in a day or so when the flowers hopefully open a bit more.

Is it a Camellia? or what else might it be?

If I tried making tea with the leaves is it likely to be horrid/noxious? Or are all Camellia leaves nice for tea making?

That does look a lot like a flowering camellia, which are apparently Japanese camellia varieties.

As for tea making, I think the short answer is, no?

Camellia sinensis has apparently been selectively bred for tea making for centuries.

Whereas, there are apparently triterpenoid saponins in Camellia japonica L. leaves water extract:

Enrichment process, structural prediction, isolation, in vitro cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory effects of triterpenoid saponins in Camellia japonica L. leaves water extract through UPLC-Q-TOF based mass spectrometry similarity networking, Lou et al. 2024
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814624000086

yep, definitely a camellia. most likely to be either C. japonica or C. sasanqua. it’s been suggested to me that any camellia can be made into tea, though ac’s info is definitely worth considering!

on a real thick-leaved camellia like this it would basically have to be done on the shoots before the leaves differentiate much. C. sinensis has leaves that are much more thin and easy to manipulate for the various ways of processing.