Chai

In Chai, you play as a tea merchant, specializing in rooibos, green, oolong, black or white tea. You collect tea flavors and pantry ingredients to blend teas and fulfill customer orders. The game lasts five rounds, and the tea merchant with the most money and points from completed orders wins.

Taking a turn

Each turn, choose to visit the tea market, visit the pantry, or reserve a customer and use an ability. After taking one of these actions, you may fulfill an order from the visible customer pool or from your reserved orders, using ingredients in your tea house.

The tea market

The market has six kinds of flavor tiles: Mint, Jasmine, Lemon, Ginger, Berries and Lavender. When you visit, you gain a gold coin worth three. You must spend at least one coin to buy tiles, and your tea house can hold up to 12 flavor tiles. If a tile you buy touches tiles of the same type vertically or horizontally, you take those tiles too. After each purchase, the remaining tiles slide left, and the market refills at the end of your turn.

The pantry

The pantry contains Milk, Honey, Vanilla, Chai Spices and Sugar. When you visit, you can take up to three available items and/or draw a random tile blindly from the pantry bag. If your tea house holds more than six pantry items, you must discard down to six. The pantry replenishes after your turn.

Customers and abilities

You can reserve a customer from the visible pool or draw one blindly from the deck. Your tea house can hold up to three reserved orders. After reserving a customer, you may use an ability action, such as taking one pantry item for free.

To fulfill an order, use the ingredients it requires from your tea house stock. If your tea specialization does not match the color of an order, you may need to buy a tea token of that color from an opponent.