Her words are so bold. She’s a wishful mother of an unwed man in his late thirties, but I worry her pushing could drive him away. I try to compose myself—hiding my embarrassment behind a pleasant expression—before glancing in Jin’s direction. When I do, he’s right there, staring at me with such intensity that I immediately lower my eyes to the salted prawn on my plate.
A week later, on the first Sunday of the new year, Jin flies to Los Angeles for a series of meetings. When Mrs. Chang and I visit in the park during the week, we don’t discuss the awkward moments after her toast, but my mind is full of unspoken truths. I’ve fallen in love with Jin, but I’m not sure the feeling is reciprocated. I could try to shield my heart and say I don’t want to see him—or her—again, but what would that bring me? Immediate loneliness. I want to prolong this emotion as long as I can, even if it will cause me pain in the future.
That’s when my a-ma comes into my mind. Two years ago and now nearly ten years after San-pa’s terrible death, A-ma cautioned me, “You shouldn’t be alone.” She also said I shouldn’t let memories of the past turn me into someone I wouldn’t recognize, and I guess this proves I haven’t, because I’m as foolish and reckless as ever. But she also said, “The right person will find you and love you,” and I have to believe that’s happened, because, truly, won’t Jin have a moment when he realizes what he feels for me? What if he proposes, we go to Spring Well Village, A-ma and A-ba like him, and we’re married in a full Akha wedding—the kind I should have had all those years ago? What if, when we come back to Guangzhou, we find an apartment together? He certainly won’t have a crossbow, but what other possessions might he bring to our home? How will our lives unfold? What if we have a child? Just the thought of that . . .
See? Foolish and reckless.
* * *
On Saturday, I work in the tea market but my mind is elsewhere. Jin returns today, and we’re set to meet this evening at our favorite café on Shamian Island. My shop is busier than ever. I work—pouring, measuring, and selling tea, listening to the conversation between my three favorite tea men. Mr. Lin brags about how many kilos of a twelve-year-old Pu’er from Laobanzhang he’s stored. He points to his laptop screen. “Come see how much money I made—overnight!” Mr. Chow says, “Only on paper.” Mr. Kwan jokes, “Only on screen, you mean!” Then they shift—as they often do—to the size of their temperature-controlled vaults. It’s a normal day, except for the thoughts about Jin that keep me from joining the banter.
It’s a normal day, that is, until two new customers enter the shop. The sight of the older man jolts me out of my daydreams. Mr. Huang! Next to him, a teenage boy, who has to be his son, Xian-rong. A little more than a decade has passed since I last saw them. I’d recognize Mr. Huang anywhere, but these days he doesn’t look so startlingly different compared to the other men in my shop. He’s still well fed, but here in the city he wears white pants, a striped shirt, and white patent leather shoes. The boy—thin, gangly, with a mild case of acne spotting his face—slouches, keeping his eyes on the floor. They don’t recognize me, of course. But seeing them brings back all the ways I failed as an Akha, as a mother, and as a wife: selling the leaves from the mother tree, abandoning my daughter, and San-pa’s addiction and death.
“I’m looking for something truly unique—the more artisanal and rarer the leaf the better,” Mr. Huang announces, proving that his desires are the same as ever.
My trio of tea men take up the challenge.
“I have tea picked from thousand-year-old trees,” Mr. Lin brags.
Mr. Chow goes a step further. “I have tea picked from a single thousand-year-old tree.”
Mr. Kwan can top either of those. “A farmer in Fujian province sold me tea picked by trained monkeys.”
A bemused expression spreads across Mr. Huang’s face. He raps on my table with his knuckles, commanding attention. “But does anyone here have tea picked by the lips of doctor-certified virgins?”
My tea men murmur among themselves. Who hasn’t seen articles on the Internet about this tea? Not only do they have to be virgins, but they’re required to have a C-cup bra size as well. Some reports claim that the girls even sleep with the tea on their breasts to infuse the leaves with vitality and virility.
“No one believes those stories,” Mr. Lin scoffs. “If you do, my friend, then you’ve been duped. Do not feel bad. Even I have bought a counterfeit on occasion from a dealer who claims the material came from forest tea trees, but was not, or was naturally fermented but was sentenced to extreme wet storage, with high heat and high humidity to achieve the proper color but not the depth of taste. We must always remember what Lu Yü, the great tea master, told us thirteen hundred years ago: The quality and goodness of a tea are for the mouth to decide.”
“How to authenticate . . . That’s the question!” Mr. Chow chimes in. “Is the seller telling the truth about the vintage? Is the rice paper wrapping original? But like Mr. Lin says, you must know by taste. Your body will tell you. If it doesn’t taste right, it isn’t right.”
“Buyer beware!” Mr. Kwan concludes.
Hearing Mr. Huang’s laughter transports me back many years. The skin on my arms reacts, contracting beyond my control, as though I’ve stepped on a bamboo pit viper. He’s a physical manifestation of all my mistakes, even if he wasn’t at fault for everything I associate with him.
“I like wise men,” Mr. Huang says, “and everything you say is true. We’re like art collectors, no? We taste every day. We know our own teas. No one believes in tea picked by the lips of virgins, because are there any of those left in China these days?” He tucks his chin as he asks, “But will you doubt me when I tell you I was the first to return to artisanal methods to create Pu’er?”
Xian-rong rolls his eyes, as though he’s heard the story a thousand times, but Mr. Lin responds with a bland “How interesting.” Then, because he can’t help himself, he adds, “Tell us more.”
“If you’re a true connoisseur, then you’ve heard of me,” Mr. Huang says. “I started a new era—to make private-label tea again.”
“Are you Mr. Lü, the creator of Truly Simple Elegant tea?” Mr. Chow asks in unveiled awe.
Mr. Huang’s crowing goes mute, and his shoulders sag. Then his eyes get the steely look I remember so well. “Mr. Lü and I were in the tea mountains around the same time. My leaves also hadn’t been picked for forty years—”
“Were they picked by virgins or monkeys?” Mr. Lin teases.
Mr. Huang visibly bristles. I wish he’d leave my shop so tranquillity could be restored.
“The tea I created is special, very potent—”
“Dad,” Xian-rong interrupts, speaking perfect English. Then to the others, he says, “Please forgive my father.”
“We have our stories too,” Mr. Lin says good-naturedly. He clasps a hand on each of his friends’ shoulders. “Come, let us leave the strangers to conduct business with our maiden.”
Despite my begging them to stay, my three tea men pack up their laptops, cellphones, and cups.