The Ritual of the Steep: Tea Culture, Female Agency, and Matrilineal Bonds in Lisa See’s The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Abstract

This study examines the narrative and symbolic functions of Pu’er tea in Lisa See’s contemporary novel The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (2017) through the theoretical lens of Material Culture Studies and Critical Plant Studies. While existing scholarship frequently addresses Asian American identity or migration patterns in See’s fiction, it often overlooks the specific narrative agency granted to botanical environments and material rituals. This research addresses this gap by investigating how tea operates as an active agent rather than a passive domestic backdrop. Employing a qualitative textual and cultural analysis, the study explores three primary dimensions of this material agency: tea as an indestructible archive of cultural identity and emotional resilience during geographic displacement; the compressed tea cake as a crucial matrilineal vessel that sustains mother-daughter bonds across generational and geographical divides; and tea knowledge—or botanical literacy—as a potent mechanism for socio-economic empowerment and female agency against patriarchal constraints. Ultimately, the study argues that See utilizes the physical and fermenting properties of Pu’er tea to mirror the complexities of human endurance, thereby contributing a fresh perspective on the intersections of botanical spaces, material anthropology, and gender in modern literature.