After having loved Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women, I was keen to read more by her, and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane might just have cemented See as a go-to author for me. 

In a remote mountain village in China, steeped in tradition, ritual and superstition, Li-yan lives and works, farming tea with her family and the wider Akha community. When a stranger arrives looking for tea to trade in the wider world, Li-yan’s small world slowly begins to expand beyond what she has ever known. When she has a baby, born out of a deep love with a young man her parents disapprove of but born in his absence, leaving her unable to follow one tradition and therefore bound to following another much darker one, she is forced to make a decision; abandoning her daughter in the vicinity of an orphanage in a nearby city, she leaves her wrapped up with a possession that will impact her for years to come – a tea cake wrapped in a distinctive wrapper.

As Li-yan moves on with her life, over the years moving away and becoming a master of tea far beyond her own village, her daughter now known as Haley grows up in California with her adoptive parents. I listened to this as an audiobook, read by a cast of characters, and over the years we get deep and moving insight into the lives of mostly Li-yan but also Haley as they unfold: love, loss, grief and betrayal; identity as a woman and the search for identity beyond expectation; identity as an immigrant and as a Chinese adoptee to white American parents; and a deep rooted resilience and never fading yearning to find each other again. 

There are some difficult passages earlier in the book around traditions and rituals, but there is also so much strength in the women who choose love over tradition. The novel provides an illuminating insight into remote communities, and how these can evolve as the modern world comes creeping in, for better and for worse. See writes so beautifully about particular and lesser known communities, and about particular moments in history, which makes this another completely captivating and immersive read. She also writes her characters with such heart, bringing to life characters that we truly care about; their joys, their sorrows, their deep connections, their tensions, their moments of growth, and their moments of profound realisation. Mother-daughter bonds are at the heart of this novel; the bond Li-yan has with her own mother, who herself is stirred outside of long-standing tradition to help her daughter in the face of a desperate decision, and the invisible string that ties Li-yan and Haley over the years. A beautiful book – powerful, moving, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful.

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The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane was published in 2017 by Scribner.

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Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the Historymaker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum. She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.