placing it inside in a warm, dry(non-humid) environment sounds like the cause to me. i see similar results even with houseplants brought inside for the winter. guessing it was inside for a couple of weeks?

Hi fleur i have several camellia sinensis plants. My plants have done this as they are very young right now they have the growing tip die off on a few. its almost certainly a fungus attack and a teaspoon of baking soda and water in a spray bottle will get ride of it. Make sure you spray under all the leaves with this mixture and give the soil a nice dampening with it. This will change the PH of the soil on the top couple inches and on the leaves. Makes sure the fungus can't grow. If you would like to tune into my Garden channel on youtube you can where i will have some more little tid bits on camellia and as well as some other food crops my channel is TheItalian Garden. hope this helped you if not ask me on my channel video How to grow camellia and i will see if i can assist you ferther.

You have a few "choices", Brandy. * The very tiny camellia bud mite infests the flower buds and flowers causing them all to brown out and fall. Early in the year, they like to suck the juices of leaves (top and/or bottom) and can chew on them. Large infestations will produce web like material. Spray a miticide in May and then two weeks later to catch the ones hatched from eggs. If detected later in the year, they can feed off flower buds causing them to drop. * Temperature changes that happen too fast for the plant can also cause flower buds to drop. For example, a large sudden change (up/down) in temperatures in Fall or Winter. Try to stop fertilizing in July/August so the plant has time to harden before winter and go dormant. * reaction to insecticides either directly on the plant or indirectly (you spray the plant besides the camellias and the winds blows the insecticide towards the camellia). Check insecticides to prior to using to see if they say that they can cause bud drop. Apply them on days with no wind (if you can). An infestation of the camellia bud mite would be visible and I would expect that you would have said something about the leaves. Because you did not, I think the problem was weather related. Two winter seasons ago, we had warm temps in the 70s through mid-December. Then a cold snap dropped the temperatures to the low 30s and they stayed there for almost a week. I lost all flower buds in all plants (well, I did have two flowers by two separate plants but that was IT!). Luis

Maybe those aren't the buds but are new branches/ foliage? If they're thinner and are pencil point shaped, they are new branches/ leaves. The buds on my Kramers Supreme are about the size of the tip of my thumb. They are nickel sized circumference and don't usually open till late january/ early february. Same deal on a Ave Maria, buds that look like little cabbages, but need some time to cook before they pop.