Few, if any, of the main characters in A Tempest of Tea have a stable family life; Jin endured the deaths of his own parents, while Arthie and Penn both suffered personal trauma that led them to sever or change their familial bonds. The very definition of family within the novel is broad and flexible, and while traditional nuclear families like Jin’s do exist, many of the familial relationships in the novel are adoptive or “found” rather than biological. Even so, these chosen relationships still contain the complex effects of interpersonal issues, particularly loss and trauma. Ultimately, each character’s experience of family is shaped—for better or worse—by their trauma, which causes them to break, change, or cling to different relationships in order to meet needs that they may not even realize are going unmet.

The primary familial relationship in the novel is Jin and Arthie’s bond. They explicitly view each other as siblings, sharing a chosen last name and protecting each other fiercely. However, their relationship also serves as an attempt to replace what they both have lost. Arthie adopts Jin as her brother because he needs her, but she grows dependent upon him to quell her need for blood through coconut water, even though she avoids trusting him with the secrets of her half-vampiric status and her identity.