This is yet another book I discovered on the Buy 2 Get 1 Free table at Barnes & Noble. I placed it on my birthday wish list and my husband got it for me. It took me a bit longer to read than it should have because I had a few busy days that kept me from having as much time as I would have liked to read. But in a way that now seems appropriate, because like the tea meant to be savored and consumed slowly, that is how I consumed the story of Li-Yan and Haley.
This was a few different stories brewed together to make one sweet and bitter experience. (yes I am going to push the tea type connections as far as I can) The story of tea and the Akha people and their culture that stayed untouched my modernity for so long was very interesting. While some of the way of life lived by them may seem wrong or backwards to modern Americans, I think it is important not to compare or hold it up to beliefs that are shaped by a different time, place, and culture.
When Li-Yan falls in love with a young man, Jin, her family tries to tell her is a bad match she doesn't agree and a relationship develops. When she ends up alone (Jin has gone off to try and make some money so he can be allowed to marry her) and pregnant rather than follow tradition her baby is given up for adoption. After a time her parents are proven right about the fitness of Jin as a match are proven true and the course of Li-Yan's life has been altered. The thread of Li-Yan's story focuses on her learning to live outside the old ways she knows and become part of the modern world and grow her knowledge of tea as she starts a life she never imagines having, all while wanting to know what happened to, and maybe even finding her baby girl. The world of tea growing and the tea market in China was fascinating.
Haley grows up in California after being adopted by a wealthy white couple. Her thread of the story was at first an insight into what it feels like to grow up not only in a home where you look nothing like anyone else, but you don't look like anyone in your community as well. The adoptee experience is explored. At the same time tea plays a part in Haley's life too, at first because the only thing she has from her birth mother is a tea cake, and later because she is drawn into studying tea from a scientific perspective. All of this leading her to a young man and a trip to China.
The relationship between mothers and daughters is also a thread running through the story.
All in all this was a warm and satisfying read.
(Finished August 2, 2018)
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