In the south, there are fine trees

Author: Wang Xufeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-12-01
Features: This book is the winning work of the 5th Mao Dun Literature Prize and is part of the Three-Part Tea Cycle. It is the first full-length novel in China that reflects tea culture. The story takes place in Hangzhou, the capital of green tea, where Hang Jiu Zhai, the heir to the Wuyou Tea House, is a tea merchant from the late Qing Dynasty in Jiangnan. Refined and literary, he was not good at managing his business and ultimately died on the bed of a courtesan. The next generation of tea masters is Hang Tian Zui, who grew up during the era when the feudal dynasty collapsed completely and the Republic of China was born. He was always torn between despair and determination. Educated, talented, passionate, and ambitious, yet indecisive. He loved his lover, his wife, his concubine, and his children, yet ultimately loved himself into confusion and had to seek refuge in Buddhism. The three sons and two daughters of Hang Tian Zui experienced an even broader era. They participated in the rise and fall of Chinese tea in various roles and ways throughout the entire process. Amidst these events, national, family, and personal fates interwove in complex and turbulent ways. The rise and fall of the tea house were closely linked to the rise and fall of Chinese tea over the past century, and thus the novel paints a grand tapestry of the fate of Chinese tea masters in modern and contemporary history.