As a big fan of tea, I’m always on board to incorporate one of my favorite drinks with my favorite hobby. Tea Garden is a deck-building game published by Capstone Games and designed by Tomáš Holek. Over the course of five rounds, you’ll build a tea empire in a river valley in the Yunnan Region of China. Cultivate the land, study the ancient methods, and impress the Emperor to win against your opponents.
That’s Some Strong Tea
Tea Garden has an interesting approach to deck-building, a game mechanic that we really enjoy. Players all start with identical decks of eleven cards and will draw four cards from their deck at the start of each of the five rounds. Each card has a strength number at the top of the card and, on some cards, there is an icon in the center of the card.
On your turn, you take a “main” action by playing a card(s) from your hand. Main actions can:
- Gain a new card to add immediately to your hand
- Build a new tea garden into the region
- Trade tea with available caravans
- Ferment tea leaves
- Harvest tea leaves from your garden buildings
The strength total of the card(s) that you play will allow you to do more, afford better cards, gain more points from the caravans, or unlock more expensive tea gardens. You can play as many cards as you want at once to get to a high strength number, but your hand of cards is limited. With only four cards in hand, you have to capitalize on gaining new cards or earning card draws on your turn.
Players will only take three turns during a round, but can unlock a fourth turn by paying a specific number of tea leaves. Your used cards each round along with your tea leaves are all tracked on your individual player board.
Outside the Main Actions
Some cards contain “secondary” actions which are really important to making the most of your turn. Tea Garden gives players plenty of avenues to gain points as long as you don’t try to focus on doing them all.
One of these actions lets you can take your boat down the river in the center of the board, gaining perks at each stop and earning a nice chunk of victory points at the end of the river.
Another secondary action is connected to the study of tea at the University on the right corner of the main board. Players will move their student around the rondel, choosing a perk in each of the four sections. You’ll earn ten victory points when your student gets to the center of the University track. A new student can be added, giving more opportunities for scoring.
The last secondary action is tea cup production. A player can pull a tea cup token off a province where they have a tea garden, working to connect like colors to gain additional bonuses. Players who commit to this strategy can gain some substantial benefits throughout the game.
There are also a variety of free actions available during a players turn. The great thing is that a player can execute these actions in any order they choose.
Aging Tea Leaves
While a big part of Tea Garden centers around deck-building, you also need to manage harvested tea leaves in the six baskets on your personal board. Leaves in these baskets can be sold to caravans, turned in to meet requirements for the Emperor, or spent to gain new cards. At the end of each round tea leaves will degrade into lower baskets but fermented tea leaves will gain strength.
Managing this resource is crucial throughout the game. You’ll limit what you can do when you don’t have the right tea leaves on your player board. The game ends after five rounds and victory points will come from points on cards, Emperor cards, the river and University tracks, and your collection of tea cups.
Tea Garden offers a lot of avenues for gaining points but it can be tough to know what the most profitable paths are. Most of my games have been played at two and three players and each one has felt like a tight economic puzzle. While the game starts off slow, finding combinations that extend your turn is where Tea Garden shines. The ramp up is slow but satisfying. In your first round of your first game, it’s almost a guarantee that you’ll ask the question “Is that it?”
This is a game that you only start to understand after several full playthroughs. You may feel limited in your first play of Tea Garden, but a strategic depth starts to click after two or three games. This is both a strength and a weakness of the game in my opinion.
I’ve come back to Tea Garden knowing that I can play better or find better ways to use my deck of cards. Players who enjoy the challenge will get some nice replayability from the game. I think this is a tough game to jump into as a new player when everyone else has played a couple times. There is a significant disadvantage to the new player when playing Tea Garden against two or three others that know the game well.
Final Thoughts
Tea Garden is not your traditional deck builder and that is both a positive and negative. The more I play the game, the more I enjoy the pacing and different strategies that open up. Players who enjoy deck-building games may not immediately connect with Tea Garden. The slow burn of this game feels fitting for a game built around a hot drink that takes patience to grow in flavor. Players who put in the time and get this game to the table multiple times will see the payoff as their tea empire grows with each game.
You can purchase Tea Garden at your local game store, online from the Capstone Games webstore or through Amazon today.
This game was provided to us by the publisher for review. Read more about our review policies at One Board Family.
Highs
- A variety of avenues to score points
- Beautiful art and style to the game components
- Immediate use of newly gained cards feels great
Lows
- First time players may be underwhelmed
- Five rounds always seems too short
Complexity
Time Commitment
Replayability
