Requires
- Buildings:
Basic Building Statistics (can be modified by difficulty level, arts, skills, traits and retainers)
- Cost: 4800
- +60 bales of tea
- +1000 to wealth generated by trade in this province
- +2 per turn to town growth from trade within this province
- -2 to happiness from modernisation
Clan Effects
- +3 to modernisation (clan development)
Description
Tea is a civilized thing.
Tea is grown in this province, and the value of this trading resource can be increased by proper and timely investment. The tea ceremony is one of the defining images of Japan for many, even if it is a bafflingly formal ritual to many outsiders. In the 1850s and later, however, tea was a Japanese product that could find a ready market in the wider world; it was also one where production could be increased to earn foreign currency. This was vitally important if Japan was to modernise, as everything needed in the process had to be brought by, and bought, from foreigners. Japanese tea proved to be successful enough that trading monopolies were granted to Japanese merchants; trade in sayama tea, for example, was a very valuable monopoly, as the brew was particularly popular in the USA. Green tea is still popular, and considered a very healthy drink.