Tea Talk: Explore Pu’er Tea with Author Lisa See and Chef Jessica VanRoo ♥ ✚

“The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See is a moving story about tradition, tea farming, and the enduring connection between mothers and daughters. Across an ocean, an adopted daughter in California and her birth mother in China search for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.

In this dynamic presentation with author Lisa See, Professor Judy Wu, and Chef Jessica VanRoo, you will learn about the role of Pu’er tea in Chinese culture and society. You will also learn how to steep tea correctly, how to smoke chicken at home, and how to make tea eggs and Pu’er shortbread cookies.

Lisa See’s books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995), a detailed account of See’s family history, and the novels Flower Net (1997), The Interior (1999), Dragon Bones (2003), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007) and Shanghai Girls (2009), which made it to the 2010 New York Times bestseller list. Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature.

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is professor of Asian American Studies at UCI and Director of UCI’s Humanities Center.

Jessica Van Roo is Director of Culinary Education at UCI.

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This event is part of TEA WEEK, sponsored by the UCI Humanities Center. This event is co-sponsored by the Anteater Recreation Center.