Event Date
Lisa See, the author of a bestselling novel in which tea plays a central role, will give the keynote address at the sixth annual colloquium for the UC Davis Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science (GTI).
See’s novel, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, explores the lives of a Chinese mother and the daughter she gave up for adoption by an American couple. While the mother continues the grueling work of farming tea as her family has done for generations, her daughter lives a privileged life in California. Both the mother and daughter are torn by their separation and search for answers in tea.
See’s keynote address at 9:30 a.m. will kick off an all-day, online colloquium on Jan. 21, titled “The Stories We Tell: Myths, Legends, and Anecdotes About Tea.” The online event is free and open to all, and will include a wide range of presentations, such as tea cultivation in California, tea and Soviet identity, tea and spirituality in Vietnam, tea in restoration England and the tea collection at London’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Presentations will be made remotely from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Great Britain, Colombia and around the United States.