Tea Witches

• Review by: Ted Cheatham
• Players: 2-4 players
• Playing time: 30 minutes per player
• Publisher: The OP Games
• Designer: Manny Vega
• Review copy provided

Set in the enchanting world of the Teaquinox Faire, Tea Witches invites players to become magical tea vendors competing for Loyal-Tea and loyal customers. Over four rounds—each representing a day at the Faire—players summon witches, serve tea, and deploy TeaPups to gather resources, fulfill orders, and upgrade their tea huts. The goal? To become the most prestigious tea witch in the land.

At its heart, this is a worker placement game to gather resources and fulfill contracts (tea orders). There are six colored covens (The major resources are money, three tea toppings (eye cube, sweet tooth, and boba bugs), and six varieties/colors of tea (suits). Green witches, for example, want green tea and some mix of tea toppings to meet their order and yellow witches want yellow tea and some mix of tea toppings, etc.

Each day starts with everyone getting a choice of a To-Go order and some little bonus like some money or a tea topping.  Then, comes the summoning.

The Summoning: Each day begins with a push-your-luck mini-game. Players draw cards from identical decks containing witches from six covens with special benefits when summoned, familiars with bonuses, and one trash witch. Drawing two witches from the same coven triggers a hex, forcing players to discard unprotected witches. Wards on your tea hut help mitigate the damage—three in the basic game, one in the advanced. The player with the most unhexed cards becomes the start player, gaining a tactical edge. If there is a tie, or everyone got hexed, the start player is the person with the highest number on their to go order card.

The Service:  This is the heart of the resource collection and engine building of the game.  Players take turns sending TeaPups to various BOOtiques across the city to gather toppings, collect tea from the rotating tea fountain, and serve witches. TeaPups also help attract Celebri-Teas, brew Special-Teas, and complete To-Go orders for witches in the city center. The board features six BOOtiques, each with three pup stops and a unique function. Most pup stops are single-occupancy, so turn order is crucial. You start the game with two TeaPups for turns one and two and get a third for turns three and four, making the game a little more competitive for spots.

On day one and two, each player has access to two TeaPups, they look like little tea pots and can hold one type of tea in the center.  These are your workers.  On day three and four, each player has three TeaPups.  Players take turns placing TeaPups, performing actions, and using BOOtique functions.

TeaPup stops within the six BOOtiques will give you either tea toppings and/or actions.  Actions are the main way of generating and manipulating tea. For one action, you may rotate the tea fountain in the center of the board.  This will bring any color tea to your current BOOtique.  For one action, you may fill your tea pup and for one action you may refill your tea pup.  Refilling your tea pup is the way to get tea into your hut for storage.  After you take your tea toppings and actions, you may use the function of your boutique.

• Brew-2-Go: Fill TeaPups and collect new To-Go orders (worth 2–4 VP).

• Hex Support: Serve Hags for money/Loyal-Tea and buy Hex Ward upgrades (worth up to 12 VP).

• Mai’s Special Teas: Gain all toppings and purchase powerful Special-Tea cards (2 VP if unused).

• Celebri-Tea Crush: Serve celebrity witches for big rewards and 6 VP if retained.

• Full Moon Market: Buy hut upgrades to store more tea and earn bonus points. Your hut starts the game with the ability to store only one tea token. These upgrades, in three sizes, allow you to store more tea and provide victory points.  There are several types of upgrades.  Some generate extra tea, some let you convert teas to other types, some let you score bonus points for sets of teas or tea toppings, etc.

• Howl’s Were-House: A discount market with leftover upgrades from the Full Moon Market.

After using the function of your chosen BOOtique, it is time to serve tea!  Players rotate the central tea fountain to access different tea types, fill and refill TeaPups, and use their collected resources to serve witches. Orders can be fulfilled from your hut (resources are spent) or directly from TeaPups (resources are retained). Successfully served witches become loyal customers, worth 4 VP if kept until the end.

The final part of the turn is to call for To-Go orders.  To-Go orders offer additional scoring opportunities. These require specific tea combinations and can be fulfilled by any player at the end of a turn, using tea visible in a single BOOtique. To-Go orders offer money and Loyal-Tea. Over time, Loyal-Tea will allow you to gain Loyal-Tea coupons which can assist in keeping loyal customers.

At the end of the round, is a clean-up phase.  TeaPups return, tea is stored (if space allows), and unserved witches are discarded. Loyal customers return each day and must be served again to remain loyal—adding a layer of continuity and pressure to your engine.

Final Thoughts: The artwork is whimsical and thematic, perfectly matching the magical tea world. Components are clear, functional, and tactile. The rulebook is well-written, with helpful examples and intuitive structure.

The game play is solid. The box says 30 minutes per player and this is about right.  With fast players I could see this at 90 minutes with four players.  Tea Witches plays well at all counts, but the lack of scaling means two-player games offer more breathing room, while four-player sessions can feel tight and occasionally slow. Analysis paralysis is possible, especially in later rounds, but the game rewards thoughtful planning.

Early rounds are about setup and subtle maneuvering. By day three, the board is crowded. You are juggling loyal customers, new witches, and ever-present threat of being blocked from a crucial BOOtique.

I felt I needed to concentrate on a few specific colors of witches and try to drive my tea colors to support them. I knew my loyal customers were coming back every turn and I had to supply them.  So, getting two green witches and two yellow witches with some Celebri-Teas that needed similar colors felt like the way to go.  Another player tried getting upgrades that could change colors of teas which gave him more options to fill different colored witches.  Another player focused on filling To-Go orders as a major part of their strategy.  And, as I mentioned earlier, the scores were very close and I believe the game is well balanced.  I did try to keep my loyal customers the whole game while another player just kept filling orders as they could letting loyal customers be discarded as needed.  The bottom line happens on day 4 where you are just trying to get as many orders as you can to score those victory points.  Whether they were loyal customers before or not does not matter.  The true advantage of loyal customers is that you know what you will need to fill their orders on future turns and can plan accordingly.

I found the strategy to be interesting in how to build an engine. Manipulating the tea and tea toppings to fill orders and which orders to fill while upgrading your hut for the future days can sometimes seem daunting. Do I fill Celebri-Teas for great rewards and to get them into my loyal customer base? Do I need some special cards or To-Go orders? There are many things to manage and other players can block a key space you need for the ideal turn. You may be concerned that this random summoning phase, push your luck, is just too much chance in the game.  However, with an overall four point spread in the top three scores, this phase did not seem to affect the play that much.  In one game, one player never busted and was the start player every turn.  I busted three out of four days and on the first turn, busted after two cards. Start player is important in this game, especially with four players and getting a few more resources is also helpful.

Ben B (1 play): The art is a positive and the rulebook is good. I found myself struggling a little with direction in the game, as I didn’t have an overarching goal. The early to-go cards are good and the player aid is a major plus but I didn’t find the turns very competitive. One player took 10+ minute turns and finished 1 point behind someone whose turn was over in a hot minute each time. I found because of the AP in the 10+ minute turn, I was a little disinterested. The only thing I cared about is where they would rotate the wheel and it happened to just be random luck, just like the drawing of cards at the beginning of a turn sequence. I asked a bunch of repeated questions about how to fill tea from a teapup and if I could use other teaPups in different BOOtiques. I enjoyed my play but I didn’t feel a tightness that may come with repeated play.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• Loved it:
• Liked it: Ted C.
• Neutral: Ben B
• Not for me: