The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Professor Ho,

I so appreciate your agreeing to be my adviser next year for my senior thesis. When I visited during your office hours last week, you asked to see a draft of my research proposal. This is the first pass:

The Impact of Climate Change on Sensory and Medicinal Attributes of Tea (Camellia sinensis) Grown from Tea Trees in the Tropical Regions of China

This thesis will have two areas of study: 1. How are compounds that create the taste, smell, and look of tea—a combination of amino acids, catechins, theobromine, methylxanthine, and free sugars—being influenced by global climate change? 2. High levels of biodiversity in the tropical forest lead to a rich food chain, which helps to minimize insect and parasite infestations. Specifically, the compounds previously listed make up defensive agents against pathogens, predators, and oxidative stress that have arisen among tea trees growing in their biodiverse—and increasingly threatened—habitat. In numerous studies, these natural protections have also been shown to be beneficial to Homo sapiens. Of these, catechins—a group of polyphenolic flavan-3-ol monomers and their gallate derivatives—are considered to be the primary health-giving compounds in tea. The most important of these is epigallocatechin-3-gallate, which is the most bioactive and which has entered the domain of “well-being culture.” With the intensified monsoons brought about by climate change, many of these antioxidant compounds are decreasing by as much as 50 percent, while other compounds are increasing. Therefore, how are tea trees’ natural protections being affected by global climate change and what will the consequences be on the health benefits of the tea leaf? Materials and methods include farmer surveys, interviews, and the gathering and testing of tea leaves.

Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear your thoughts at your earliest convenience,

Haley Davis



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Haley,

This looks very ambitious, but what else can I expect from a student with two majors, Biology and Earth Sciences? You must be aiming not just to graduate with honors, as all those who choose to write a senior thesis will achieve, or even to graduate “with distinction” (assuming your GPA is high enough, which I’m sure it will be), but with the Firestone Award for social and natural science.

Before we get into the meat of your thesis, I have a few practical questions:

1. I’d like to know your personal interest in such an arcane subject. Don’t get me wrong. The winners of the Firestone Award seem to specialize in arcana, which the committee appreciates. It will behoove you to flesh out that aspect.

2. I assume you plan to go to Yunnan. Are you applying for a fellowship or some other type of funding? Would you consider an internship with a larger academic study already under way? My concern is how you’ll get to these farms, where you’ll stay, and how you’ll communicate. On behalf of the university, I can say we don’t want you to do anything that will put you in danger or outside your comfort zone.

3. This looks like a multiyear study. Do you plan to carry on with your research in graduate school?

4. Regarding the “health benefits” to which you refer: We know that green tea has high levels of polyphenols. These antioxidants fight free radicals, which many scientists believe contribute to the aging process, including damage to DNA, some types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc. But apart from the University of Maryland Medical Center’s study, can you point to proven health claims? I’m not interested in marketing, anecdotal evidence, or supposition about tea that isn’t backed by fact or reason. I want to see legitimate documentation on this before you move forward.

5. I presume one reason you approached me to be your adviser is that I’m Chinese. As such, I hope you’ll consider adding a third area to your thesis even though it’s not within the “hard science” realm: How do we reconcile the poetry and philosophy of tea with the practicalities of growing and processing the product? I grew up hearing ancient beliefs about tea from my immigrant parents: Every hour spent drinking tea is a distillation of all the tea hours that have ever been spent; and Truly you can find the universal through the particular of tea. Personally, I see a real disconnect between a sentiment like Tea is the cup of humanity and the hardscrabble life of tea farmers. If you can incorporate these humanistic aspects in your materials and methods, I believe the awards committee will take notice, and your thesis will rise above others.

I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you.

Professor Annabeth Ho



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Professor Ho,

Thank you for your thoughtful and thought-provoking questions. I realize now I should have given you a little more background. Let me try to do that, as well as answer your queries.

Last summer, I went to the World Tea Expo, which happened to be in Southern California, where I’m from. I sampled teas from Thailand, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Uganda—seemingly everywhere. A whole section of the expo was devoted to the teas of Yunnan, especially to Pu’er, which is extremely rare in China, and even rarer in the world. People at the expo were gambling that tea will be the next big thing here in the United States, where sales of loose, bagged, and ready-to-drink teas have steadily risen over the last two decades. This year, the estimated wholesale value of the U.S. tea industry is $11.5 billion. The clincher, it seems to me, is Starbucks’s purchase of Teavana in 2012. It also doesn’t take a genius to notice the similarities between tea and wine connoisseurs; they both talk about vintage, harvest seasons, varietals, geographic source, the effects of light, soil, weather, and, of course, age on taste. Even the language to describe flavor is similar: “acidic, followed by notes of orchid and plum.”