Chai Review: Rea-tea for Some Fun?
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Chai!
Do you enjoy a good cup of tea? Have you ever offered tea to your friends, family or guests? Do you see yourself as a renowned tea merchant? Well, you’re in luck because Chai will help you discover your inner passion for serving others the perfect cup of tea. Chai designed by Dan and Connie Kazmaier, the art done by Mary Haasdyk and Sahana VJ and is published by Steeped Tea Games. Chai is a set collection game in which you attempt to fulfill various orders from tea fanatics. Will your tea be renowned and celebrated or simply spilled?
Overview
In Chai, you will take on the role of a specialist tea merchant with the goal of creating a perfect blend using select flavors. Over a series of five rounds, you will take turns collecting ingredients from the market and the pantry and reserving customers. You will compete to score the most points by fulfilling customer orders, collecting coins and potential rewards throughout the game.
There are three main actions that you will choose between during your turn: Visit the Market, Visit the Pantry or Reserve and Use Ability. When you Visit the Market, you will receive three gold which can be used to buy from a variety of available ingredients with the cost varying on the position in the market. Visiting the Pantry will allow you to select up to three additives from the board or randomly from the bag. Reserving allows you to take a customer from the public space and move them into your private space so you are the only one who can serve them. On top of reserving a customer, you may choose to perform an action on one of the face up ability cards.
As a final action during your turn, you will have the chance to fulfill an order. This happens by matching the symbols on the customer cards in your private space or in the public space, adding your specialty tea leaf to the mix and sending it off with the customer. Alternatively, you can complete an order using your opponents leaves but it will cost you a precious coin! Once you fulfill an order you’ll get a tip, you will also receive a range of points depending on the difficulty of the customer’s request so it is important to efficiently plan which orders to complete so you can work towards collecting the most points.
The round ends when all tea cups have been filled. In some cases, you will have completed one or more orders in a round, or completed none at all (but do not fret, it happens.) Once the round has ended, you will replace one of the ability cards with a new card and the tips by the cups will be refreshed to begin a new round. Once the fifth round is over, points are counted from customer orders, coins, and awards and whoever finishes with the most points will be named the best tea merchant around! Does this sound like your cup of tea?
First Game Impression
This game is truly special to us because it’s designed by people local to our province here in Canada. Although we have not had the chance to meet Dan and Connie (yet), it’s always exciting to support those close to home, especially with a game as beautiful as this. Dan and Connie sent us a copy of the game to check out and immediately upon arrival we were enamored by the presentation of this game. What stood out immediately is the diversity that is depicted on the customer cards, not only are there real people of all sorts of backgrounds and life experiences, there are also a tremendous amount of pop culture references that immediately drew us in. Who wouldn’t want to serve tea to Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
We set the game up and began to play, the rules were simple to follow and the strategies in the game were quite apparent from the first turn. It was a true balancing act between taking the right actions at the right time; it felt like we were running between the pantry and the market and chatting with the customers along the way. The atmosphere was fantastic and we were immediately drawn into the way ingredients were purchased at the market, it was almost a mini-game within this board game.
I ended up losing the first game but knew exactly why, I wanted to satisfy as many customers as I could and wasn’t picky so many of the ones I served weren’t as high scoring as the ones Tylor served, but now both knowing that and seeing the various ways we could strategize and outsmart each other we were certainly intrigued to dive back in!
Thoughts After Five Games
This game is a perfect example of why you should give games more than just one or two playthroughs. Don’t get me wrong here, we thoroughly enjoyed our experience the first couple of playthroughs but after our third game we really both saw the strategies in the game and were able to compete in a much more significant and exciting way. We would both try to steal the high scoring cards, while balancing the idea of taking a risk and just trying to fulfill more orders in general.
It was also super exciting to play this game with more than just us two. Playing at three was a slightly better experience in my opinion as it was less of a strategic showdown between two people hoping to predict each other moves, but rather a whole spectacle as more players in a game create a much more dynamic and varying experience. It was really interesting to observe how each of us approached the game as well. Once we were all super familiar with the gameplay, each game felt truly exciting and special. We found ourselves narrating some of the characters and almost swaying them to come have tea at our stand rather than our competitors.
What was truly special is the details in this game began to really stand out. We appreciated how the boards were laid out, the detail in tokens and pieces, the colours, and most of all, the varying customers. This is certainly a game we will be getting to the table often, especially because it also provides that really bright and cheery feel, which in cold monotone Canadian winter is very much needed.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: A-
Strengths: The immersion in this game is truly special, the market manages to capture a bustling, bargaining environment, the pantry seems to always be limited and you truly feel like you’re connecting with each of your customers. The vibrancy, beautiful colours and each detail in this game is clearly well thought out and the combination of all the elements and mechanics provide a memorable experience.
Areas of Improvement: We found ourselves not using the reserve action many times, as it seemed quite dependent on the action cards that were currently in place, I wonder if a couple of actions could be set in stone with another couple rotating in and out? Goals and bonus points for acquiring certain customers would have been an interesting addition to boost replayability as well in my opinion.
Memorability: A-
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game? It certainly did, the entire experience from the fun components, the bustling market and unique mechanism of playing with the arrangement of ingredients to get the best price really grasped my math/pattern side of the brain. I also could not stop thinking about the various character cards and the major personalities behind all of them.
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to? Introducing this game was certainly a joy, there was so much to showcase, the fun tea cups, the variety of customers and components and the overall ease of playing this game. The folks we’ve introduced this game to thoroughly enjoyed it and were eager to play again. We have not had the chance to play this at full player count but I’m certainly excited to.
How many memories can be built from this game? There’s a slight “take that” mechanism present as you are competing for various customers and resources. A race to fulfill an order often leads to big moments as the last component is taken! Stealing a customer, collecting the last ginger, or simply taking all the honey out of the pantry creates an exciting and immersive experience as you begin to see the demand rise for certain ingredients. It’s also interesting how the leaves of a particular type can run out and customers that require that leaf can no longer be served.
Education: A-
Let’s jump into the obvious, you’ll need to make sure you have the right amount of coins to buy ingredients and enough ingredients to fulfill orders. As this game provides a family option this could be a fantastic way to include children and youth in this game to create some of those basic trading skills, which let’s face it are life skills. Going to the grocery store with twenty dollars, you’re going to want to know what you can and need to get.
Now the fun part, the less obvious. Let’s begin with optimizing your path to victory, the game presents you many conditions and choices you will need to make to use your time, ingredients and money in the most optimal way possible. You’ll need to balance your decision making in order to compete for that path. Many games present this option but I particularly enjoy it here because of how evident the race is. There’s also an opportunity to throw many wrenches at your opponents plans as well to prevent them from claiming what you want. The choice of actions are such a good portrayal of time here too, you can either go to the pantry or the market, which means time is a resource here too.
Now why does this matter? I honestly could write an essay of examples but let’s use a topical one. Due to COVID-19 our grocery store aisles in Canada are limited to one direction so you can’t go up and down the same aisle and essentially have to make loops. If you know what you want, you can path out how you collect your groceries in a manner that best uses your time. However, if all of the sudden one of the ingredients for your famous chili is missing, what do you do? Do you make a completely different meal or try to find an alternative? How do you adapt? This game allows you to practice that skillset and become more efficient at thinking on your feet.
What a perfect transition too? Adapting is so crucial in this game. You’ll be adapting to new information with customers, ingredients and additives becoming refreshed. Let’s not forget adapting to other player actions as well, even if it means someone stealing Hercules who you really wanted to serve. Adapting to various circumstances is one of the most important life skills and any games that make it fun are tremendously valuable in my opinion.
Replayability: B
The premise of the game is to score the most points by fulfilling customer orders. The variability comes from character cards, how ingredients and additives come out of the bag and the variety of action cards. This game certainly does a good job of ensuring each experience is different because of the mixed variability of all of these elements.
Having said that though, it doesn’t stand out in replayability in my eyes. I will surely play this game many times and wouldn’t turn down a game but after a while it becomes quite similar. I would have loved to see secret objectives with bonus points for scoring specific customers, or even bonus points for scoring customers in ascending order of points for example? It would have provided a bit more replayability in my eyes and elevated an already great game.
Imagination: A
This game does phenomenal job in this category. The actions are thematic, each decision is meaningful and the customers are inviting, engaging and exciting!
What I particularly love is the vast representation on the character cards, the popular culture references to go along create such an engaging experience. You’ll never know who will come visit your tea stand and the story they will have to tell.
The market although not complex does a great job at emulating a bustling theme where you barter for various goods. The pantry feels like a pantry with limited additives but refilling on a consistent basis and you genuinely feel like you’re in a competitive environment to sell the pure relaxation that comes from a cup of tea.
Target: A
Diversity and inclusion was thought out and implemented well in this game. This feels weird to say but seeing a character in a wheelchair in a game just made me really thankful and hopeful for the future of this wonderful hobby. I’m certainly appreciative of the work Steeped Tea has done for this game. The customers are relatable, diverse and engaging and tea really is for everyone.
The design is colour blind friendly with lots of symbols and beyond the reference card there isn’t any text in the game itself, which makes it quite accessible overall. You can tell the target for this game is quite broad as there is an organic (family friendly) variant, as well as a connoisseur variant as well to challenge yourself. The rules are fairly simple to grasp and you can begin playing within five minutes of opening the box, so no eyes glazing over during the rules here!
This game does an impeccable job at not only entertaining and providing a memorable experience but drawing folks into the hobby as well. I can see us introducing this game to either of our families and them enjoying their experience (and eventually playing all the heavy games with us because of it?)
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
First of all, I love tea and second, I love supporting local! So, this game instantly gets my brownie points.
Chai is a deceiving game in my opinion! It seems like a relatively simple game of resource management, set collection and order fulfillment but that is not the case. You really need to pick and choose how you want to serve your customers. There is this balancing act between strategically allocating resources to the higher scoring customers and the tense moments of uncertainty towards filling an order before the round or game end. That said, these hidden complexities make the game that much more fun.
Maybe I am a little bias but I thoroughly enjoyed this game. The purchasing is neat because you can create almost chain reactions at the market. The act of fulfilling an order is super satisfying. Overall, I like the pace of this game and what it has to offer so I am excited to get it to the table more often and introduce it to others.
Final Thoughts: Overall quite a fantastic game, it’s easy to get to the table, it’s incredibly inviting and inclusive and as the games are fairly quick it’s easy to jump into another round to compete as a rival tea merchant. Each element of the game was thought out to provide an immersive and memorable experience and the dynamic nature of player interaction certainly creates an experience we will be sharing with many individuals to come.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: A-
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.