Yoon-Suin: Teas of the Hundred Kingdoms

Tea is very important in Yoon-Suin. The people of the Purple Land drink alcohol, but not as much as they might in your generic Not Europe fantasy setting; mostly they drink tea (and smoke opium, but that's another post).

The Yoon-Suin book has a fantastic appendix entry for creating specialist teas, but I wanted to bring some more detail to the regular teas my PCs might be drinking.

I don't drink tea, but I'm fortunate enough to have a good friend who is a tea sommelier and runs his own specialist tea business; sometimes what counts is not what you know, but who you know. I consulted my friend and came up with a random tea flavour table that would make him foam at the mouth with rage over my simplification of his beloved beverage.

A regular pot of tea prompts two rolls: a d20 on the Tea Flavour Table to determine the flavour of the tea, and a d6 on the Tea Sensation Table to determine how your character feels after drinking it.

Tea Flavour Table

1. Wood (oak, cedar, bark, sawdust)
2. Earth (compost, forest floor, peat)
3. Mineral (chalk, salt, sulphur, metal)
4. Marine (fish, seaweed, ocean breeze)
5. Animal (leather, blood, musk)
6. Herbal (lavender, mint, fennel)
7. Vegetable (asparagus, spinach, green beans)
8. Grass (hay, straw, bamboo)
9. Tree/Vine Fruit (grape, apricot, apple)
10. Citrus (lemon, orange, mandarin)
11. Berry (strawberry, blueberry, blackcurrant)
12. Tropical Fruit (pineapple, mango, plantain)
13. Floral (rose, dandelion, hops)
14. Spice (cinnamon, vanilla, ginger)
15. Sweet (honey, burnt sugarcane, caramel)
16. Nutty (peanut, almond, roasted hazelnut)
17. Char (ash, smoke, tobacco)
18. Milky (milk, cream, butter)
19. Bland (dead leaves in hot water...)
20. Roll twice, duplicates indicate a particularly strong flavour

Tea Sensation Table

1. Extended toilet break: you will have to relieve yourself several times over the next hour, not doing so will cause great discomfort and an inability to stand still
2. Toilet break: did you know that all mammals take the same amount of time to urinate?
3. Revitalising: you feel energized, ready to take on the world; this will cure almost any hangover
4. Deep satisfaction: you needed this tea more than you realised; you experience a profound contentment
5. Clear-headedness: electricity arcs across your mind and awakens your synapses
6. Cleansing: the steam from the tea strips impurities from your mind, body, and spirit; you feel renewed

You could expand this with tea colours, tea preparation and ceremonies, a table for the shape, texture, and colour of tea leaves... but I think there's enough detail here unless you really want to drill down into every cup of tea in the Hundred Kingdoms and beyond.