The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(84)

“She’s an outsider,” Ci-teh tells them, defiant.

“Yes, I’ve lived outside, but answer me this: How much did she pay for your artificially fermented tea that you then wrapped in counterfeit paper, knowing your finished product was also not from Laobanzhang?”

A faceless voice reveals “Two thousand yuan a kilo.”

“A lot of money. But do you know what she told me she paid the farmers in Laobanzhang? Three thousand yuan. At the very least, she was stealing one thousand yuan from me per kilo of the fake Pu’er. As we stand together now, only one person knows how much she asked customers to pay for that same tea. Ten, twenty, fifty times what she paid you?”

The grumbling begins again, but this time I sense the tide turning.

“Ci-teh’s made a lot of money by acting against Akha Law,” I press on. “I made a lot of money too. Your lives have been boosted as well. New houses. Electricity. Motorbikes. We can each take some responsibility. But these fakes have caught up to all of us. Outside, the price of Pu’er has fallen by half and is continuing to tumble.”

“It can’t be true.”

“How can we trust you?”

“You can’t,” Ci-teh jumps in. “We have a ton or more of fermenting tea in our sheds. Think about that. Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but I guarantee I’ll pay you one thousand yuan per kilo.”

That’s half what she previously paid but still the equivalent of a little over $130,000 for Spring Well’s ton of tea at today’s exchange rate. That translates to around $3,250 for each of the village’s forty households, and that doesn’t include teas made from the lesser pickings throughout the year. I remember when my family was lucky to earn 200 yuan a month—$300 a year—and we were thankful for it.

“If everyone wants to make fermented tea,” I say, “then let’s do it the right way. I’ll pay you well—maybe not one thousand yuan to start, but we could build back to that and higher. Let’s never again try to pass off our tea as something it isn’t—”

“I’ve promised to sublease land from every family here,” Ci-teh interrupts. “Let’s say what she’s told you about the price of Pu’er is true, then your tea trees and the land under them have no value. I want to help you. Don’t let an outsider who’s been influenced by bad spirits trick you.”

“Do you realize what she’s doing?” I ask Spring Well’s families. “She’s trying to steal your land!”

“I’m not stealing,” she answers. “I’m subleasing. I’m volunteering to take responsibility for every lease until the next renewal of the Thirty Years No Change policy.”

“You’re trying to become a landowner!” It’s the worst accusation I could make.

I search out Jin. He gives me a subtle nod. Say it. Go for it. You’re strong.

“Your family was always better off than others in Spring Well,” I say, “but now you would take the leases of every family here? At the bottom of the market? Betting that the price of tea will come back?”

She laughs derisively. “You don’t know a thing about it. I’ve decided to tear out the tea trees once and for all. I’m going to help the people convert their land to rubber and coffee.”

“But we’re at too high an elevation to grow rubber! And it destroys everything around it. As for coffee—”

“Starbucks and Nestlé have already approached me,” she says smugly. “Everyone here will make money, because the worldwide demand for coffee—”

“You’d deprive the people of the one thing they have—land with our special trees?”

“But you’ll have money,” Ci-teh says, speaking again to the villagers. “I can pay you more than you’ll ever earn from tea.”

“You’ll have money for a couple of years, but then what?” I appeal to the crowd. “Will your sons and daughters have to go out as I did? You can look at me now and say, Oh, she’s an outsider. Or, Oh, her fate has been easy. But I know what’s out there for Akha who have no education or opportunity.”

How can I make them understand?

“There’s more to us than cash,” I say, “and there’s more to our tea trees than profit. We Recite the Lineage, but our lineage is in our trees too. We can start again, but we should do it the right way, by treasuring what is most valuable to us. Every tree has a soul. Every grain of rice. Every—”

Ci-teh opens her mouth to object, but before she has a chance, A-ba calls out, “Listen to my daughter. She is still the only person from our village to go to second-and third-level school. She went out, just like Teacher Zhang said she would. We need someone who can represent us and look after us.”

I’m overwhelmed that he would speak this way on my behalf, but I have the sense to add, “But only if we can behave as proper Akha—”

“Look around,” A-ba continues. “My daughter’s entire clan is here, but where is Ci-teh’s clan? Where are her husband and her daughters? Who—what—is an Akha without family?”

A man who defended Ci-teh earlier steps forward. “She leased my land three years ago. It’s the closest to Bamboo Forest Village, where her husband is from. She built herself a house on it.”