A Year Of Springs dev npckc is bringing their fantasy tea-brewing sim to PC
A warm treat
If you’re a fan of visual novels, you’ve likely come across developer npckc for their work on A Pet Shop After Dark and A Year Of Springs - one of the best visual novels on PC. They’re now bringing Tavern For Tea - a lovely-looking tea-brewing sim - to PC, after it launched on mobile a few years ago.
The setup is similar to the equally chill Coffee Talk, but this time you’re replacing the coffee with some teabags. You play as the owner of the titular tavern, and chat with and serve tea for a cast of fantasy characters, who're fully equipped with the classic swords, shields, and bat wings you’ve come to expect.
The tea-brewing minigame looks relatively simple, asking you to pick the right ingredients for the right customer so you can serve the perfect, warming cuppa. Let's play videos of A Tavern For Tea show the game's vibes are just as sweet, dishing up some relaxing lo-fi beats to accompany its cute paper-cutout art style. Perfect for the cold season, eh?
Npckc has been making (and translating) interesting visual novels for years, and their games have been illuminating LGBTQ+ stories throughout. J. Szpilka was impressed by Last Day Of Spring, and how it explored trans lives through a cis lens. Spring Leaves No Flowers was another unique entry, highlighting why games need more coming out stories. Finally, last year Alicia Haddick had the chance to interview npckc about telling kinder queer stories in their bitesize games.
A Tavern For Tea opens for business on Steam later this month on March 24th. Now excuse me while I boil the kettle.