Tea Garden

Tea Garden is a medium-heavy strategy game about the craft and commerce of tea in the river valleys of ancient Yunnan. Each round begins with a hand of multi-use cards. Their values provide the strength needed for up to four main actions, but committing a strong card to one opportunity removes it from another. Players establish gardens in productive regions, harvest green leaves, and allow them to ferment into increasingly valuable brown tea. Caravans purchase specific qualities, transforming careful timing into income and prestige, while new cards improve the deck that powers future rounds. The river offers secondary movement and bonuses, tea cups reward sets and timing, and university study opens another route to knowledge and points. Automatic resource growth means a leaf left alone may become exactly what a later contract wants, but waiting can surrender the best market or garden position to an opponent. End-game bonuses encourage a coherent estate rather than a collection of isolated actions. The mechanisms are tightly linked: stronger cards expand the action economy, gardens feed fermentation, trade funds development, and every decision changes what the next harvest can become. Tea Garden turns patient cultivation into a competitive engine where quality comes from knowing when not to sell.