Lisa See has done it again - a novel exploring Chinese culture and family relationships that grabs readers from the start. Who knew that the history of Pu'er tea could be so fascinating? Through the story of Li-Yan and her family, members of the Akha people that live in the isolated mountain region of Yunnan, See weaves a story of the tea culture of Asia and the bonds between parents and children, especially mothers and daughters. Li-Yan leaves her daughter at an orphanage, making her one of thousands of Chinese girls adopted by Americans during China's period of the one child policy. But Li-Yan has far more crushing reasons for giving her baby away, and she spends many years seeking her daughter while she climbs to success as a tea entrepreneur. Heartbreaking and fascinating at the same time, this novel will engage readers and give book clubs much to discuss.

The Tea Bird of Hummingbird Lane, Lisa See, author; Ruthie Ann Miles, Kimiko Glenn, Alexandra Allwine, Gabra Zackman, Jeremy Bobb, Joy Osmanski, Emily Walton, Erin Wilhelmi, narrators

This novel truly illuminates the archaic nature of the hill tribes of Yunnan Province and their Chinese tea culture, beginning in the late 1980’s, when most of the rest of the world has advanced into advanced technology and modernity. Much of China’s tea raising communities still existed in the past, without creature comforts, and in the absence of any kind of women’s rights or modern laws about the sanctity of life. It was a male dominated society, largely governed by superstition, tradition and spirits. In the hill villages they still practiced backward rituals to cure disease, rid the community of evil influences, enhance a woman’s fertility, and made group decisions which governed everyone’s behavior.
Li-yan (later, sometimes called Tina Chang), was born in Spring Well, in Yunnan. She belonged to an ethnic minority called Akha. The majority were Han. The Cultural Revolution had only recently ended. Her story begins when she was ten years old, in 1988. It was at that time that she was considered old enough to learn how to be a midwife like her mother. Before they left for the birthing, she was asked by her mother what she had dreamed the night before. To prevent despair, Li-yan lied about its content, which predicted misfortune. Instead, she altered the dream to make it more propitious. Did her dream portend disaster? Could it be prevented if the truth went unspoken? Could evil spirits pass through the Spirit Gate?
The birth, she later witnessed, educated her into the ritual, cruel superstitious ways of the Akha, ways she must follow and obey, even though they were not to her liking. When the mother gave birth to twins, they had to be put to death. Twins were considered human rejects; they were an evil omen requiring a special ceremony, after which, the parents were to be banished from the community to prevent the spread of evil. Learning of this heinous action, still believed in so recently, was particularly horrifying to me, since I am one half of a fraternal twin! Li-yan’s mother explained that this practice must be adhered to in order to keep the community safe and prevent the spread of the human rejects. If one was allowed to live, they would soon multiply and infect the entire community, bringing evil spirits down upon them, along with misfortune. They were following a “Hitlerian” practice of eugenics!
Shortly after this incident, Li-yan was brought to see her secret dowry. It was considered to be a worthless piece of land, but it was her mother’s treasure, handed down to a woman in the family, generation after generation. It was a secret tea mountain with ancient trees. Although all possessions were supposed to be transferred to the husband, according to tradition, her mother had not done so with this land; men were forbidden from entering there. The tea leaves on those trees seemed to have unique medicinal qualities that her mother used to brew a tea to help heal the sick. No one knew the location of the trees producing these special leaves, except Li=yan and her mother, although there were some who were driven to discover them.
When Li-yan was taken to the tea market, for the sale of their tea, she met a young boy, San-pa, a member of the same ethnic minority, the Akha. He was headstrong with a wild reputation. She spied him hiding and eating a pancake she coveted, however, unbeknownst to her, he had stolen it. He offered her a bite and she accepted. Like the biting of Eve’s apple, by Adam, this sin of biting the pancake was soon discovered. Because her mouth was greasy from the pancake, she was considered complicit, and she too was chastised and punished. Her behavior brought disgrace upon her family requiring a payment they could little afford and a cleansing ritual performed by the village shamans in front of everyone.
When Mr. Huang, a supposed tea connoisseur came to the community to search for tea, he was at first rebuffed, but soon he was embraced and the community began to harvest tea only for him. He had a son with him who soon became beloved by Li-Yan and her mother, although each was unaware of the friendship each had developed with him. Mr. Huang was very influential in the lives of Li-yan and her community over the next several decades.
When school began, Li-yan discovered San-pa again. As the years passed, their relationship deepened, but her family refused to allow them to marry. He went off to make his fortune and promised to return for her. When she found herself with child, she was forced to conceal her pregnancy because he had not returned. As with twins, a child born out of wedlock was a human reject; it brought evil into the community and disgrace to the family. That child must be killed, but Li-yan refused to kill her child, Yan-yeh. With the help of her mother, defying her own culture, Yan-yeh was left near an orphanage. In the child’s swaddling, the grandmother placed a special tea cake to take her safely on her way, and one day, hopefully, to help her return.
Li-yan missed the exams for college, because of the work for Mr. Huang during the tea season, but she was invited to attend a trade school and from there to attend a newly instituted college of tea study. She became and expert and a successful entrepreneur with her own tea shop. One day, she met an interesting woman in the park. Soon she married the woman’s son, Jin, a member of the ethnic majority, the Han, and she could never have imagined his great wealth. She was a Cinderella figure! From the time she abandoned her child, she was determined to find her again. However, she was unsuccessful, and soon, she had another child, a son, Paul.
Meanwhile, another story develops alongside Li-yan’s. The child she abandoned was adopted and sent to the United States. She was brought up in California, as Haley Davis, by white parents; she went through all of the traumas adoptees suffer, in addition to being ridiculed, sometimes, because she did not look like her parents. She developed an interest in the tea industry, perhaps because she had always treasured the tea cake left in her swaddling, and she followed a career in that direction, like her birth mother. Through her letters and her psychological and medical evaluations, we learned about her life and how it would one day come full circle allowing her to return to her roots.
As you must realize by now, the story was like a fairy tale. All of the characters eventually interconnected. The story was often contrived, but for the most part, it was an interesting novel. I enjoyed learning about the Chinese culture, and I found the descriptions of tea production eye-opening. I learned a great deal about a special brew of tea that is called Puerr*** and is known for its medicinal and calming qualities. I also learned some very unusual expressions used by the Akha.
The book really illuminated the rise of the tea industry and the rise of prosperity in the tea producing communities. It even introduced the production of coffee there, as well. It explored the problems of immigrant adoption, with all of its ramifications for the families, the adoptees and those that had to abandon their own because of archaic, barbaric laws and superstitions. It illustrated the effect of the cultural revolution from 1966-1976, on Chinese society to some degree, as well. The book examined family ties and superstitions, the psychological issues faced by children adopted into families that were not of their own race, the lack of a woman’s right to make her own choices, human trafficking, to some degree, the often hopeless search for birth parents, and the clash of cultures. The history of Li-yan‘s life began in 1988 and Haley’s began in 1995. As their two lives paralleled, the reader learned of their experiences up until the current day, in 2016. They could not help but be struck by the two completely different worlds they lived in and enjoyed. Learning about the traditions, spirits, legends and incantations that guided them was very interesting.
On the negative side, the author could not help inserting her personal views on climate change into the narrative. I felt Haley was the stereotypical Asian child, with a love of violin and learning. She was obedient and eager to please, upwardly mobile and ambitious. Her adopted parents were over protective. They feared what all adoptive parents fear, that the child will reject them. The child feared being returned. The aphorisms, proverbs and actual history were truly interesting, but the tale itself, while it rolled out smoothly lacked credibility. Both Li-yan and Haley were alternately too naïve or too worldly. Li-yan had the Midas touch; Haley was at the top of all her classes. Both succeeded beyond their expectations with all things in their lives seeming to fall into place serendipitously, although there was no development of the relationship between Li-yan and Haley when the book ended. Perhaps there will be a sequel.
The narrators were excellent.
***For more information on Puerr tea, the following sites are helpful:http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/08/what-is-puerh-tea-where-to-buy.html
For a tea to be called pu-erh, it must be made from the large-leaf subspecies Camellia sinensis var. assamica and grown in Yunnan Province in China's southwest, where Han Chinese as well as many ethnic minorities share borders with Burma and Laos. It's one of the few teas to be designated a protected origin product by the Chinese government, a rarity in an industry run wild with loose, unregulated terms and limited oversight”
http://www.teavana.com/us/en/tea/pu-erh-tea
Pu-erh tea is sometimes called the diet tea. Pu Erh teas (or Pu'er teas) are aged for 15 years and known for their rich earthy flavor and medicinal qualities.

www.webmd.com/.../ingredientmono-1169-pu-erh%20tea.aspx?...pu-erh%20tea

Green tea is not fermented, oolong tea is partially fermented, black tea is fully fermented, and Pu-erh tea is post-fermented. ... Pu-erh tea is used as medicine. ... Pu-erh tea contains caffeine, although not as much caffeine as other teas.

https://www.rishi-tea.com/category/pu-erh-tea

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate—the first automobile any of them have seen—and a stranger arrives.

In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city.

After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.

as in all her books you learn a lot about culture. predictable outcome but good read....although ends a bit abruptly.

The book presented a fascinating culture and insight into China and the world of tea.

Insightful and inspiring.

Our entire book club loved this book! Lisa See's extraordinary research into the culture of the Chinese hill tribe, the Akha, made this story a page turner! Strong female characters, weave together a story filled with intrigue, surprising turns, abundance of spiritual rituals and inspiring characters, and an education into the maze that is the Chinese adoption process. And an incredible introduction into the mesmerizing world of tea...and how the tribe's survival depended on it. A fantastic read...one that's meant to be read twice!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by Lisa See!

As a Cuban coffee aficionado I can appreciate Ms. See's extensive crash course in all that is the world of tea (then, now, and in the future). Ms. See researched her tea quite thoroughly. As much as I appreciated the tea lesson, the part of the book I found most compelling was its delving into the impact of an inter-racial adoption on all parties involved (including their extended families) and society's reaction to it. The book's ending took the aphorism "no coincidence, no story" a bit too far though.

Lisa See continues to research and provide great historical facts and insights in her latest work. I was unaware of the mountain people of China and Thailand, and completely amazed by the culture, superstitions-that dominate the tea world. Gave me a greater understanding of tea as well as the strength and courage of women

Interesting and emotional. Great read or listen.

This is a well-written novel that touches on a multitude of issues and themes (perhaps too many): tea growing, the Chinese "one child" policy, the bond between mothers and daughters, the experiences of foreign adoptees, and the indigenous tribes of China. I couldn't put this book down, but I did think that there were too many coincidences propelling the story, and in my opinion, the ending is just a little too pat.

It was hard to read some parts that were upsetting (like all her books) but overall it was an excellent story. Very highly recommended!

Descriptive and beautifully written, this is a story of overcoming obstacles. This book was, for me, a history lesson full of insight, moving characters, intimacy and resilience.

Great read! The author’s writing style makes the reader connect easily with the story.

I really enjoyed this book. It was very educational and informative.

Although every bit of the story is predictable, THE TEA GIRL OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE is impressive for its descriptions of a part of the world that few of us know anything about and of the people who live there. Also notable are the explanations of tea, its history and industry. It might make you want to trade your coffee for tea.

The story begins in China in a remote village up in a mountain. The reader watches a young girl, Li-yan, grow up there. The descriptions of her family life, her interactions with friends and others in the village, and especially her growing involvement in the tea industry are all interesting, and that was enough to make continue reading.

Almost from the start, though, I was horrified with the villagers’ superstitions. This is probably an accurate portrait of life there, but some of it is hard to read.

Li-yan’s story and the story of the tea girl of Hummingbird Lane (not Li-yan) are, as I said, predictable throughout. But, even if you pretty much know what’s going to happen to them, it also pretty much goes the way you want it to go. So the story is satisfying even if it's too coincidental.

Loved this historical read - learned about a different culture and appreciate tea much more!

An interesting view into the lives of an ethnic minority in China and their culture, and its reliance on the growing and harvesting of tea. Add in a story of adoption to the United States, and how the characters adapt to China’s changing economy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and the book turns into an epic. But at the heart, it’s about mothers and daughters and their love.

C