The story of a Chinese mother and her daughter, who has been adopted by an American couple, tracing the very different cultural factors that compel them to consume a rare native tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations.
Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea in their remote Yunnan village. Then a stranger arrives, finding the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. Li-yan translates for the stranger. When she has a baby outside of wedlock she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her near an orphanage. Adopted by a couple in California, Haley grows up privileged and well-loved. As Haley wonders about her origins, Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They find answers in the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations.