The story
Fiction and adapted settings written by Akitsora Gaming for this title, including invented dialogue and events. This is not a historical or folklore reference. The rules and specification tables define the gameplay and math.
Isshin niyō.
— One bud and two leaves, and nothing below. The rule on the tea hills
I. The eighty-eighth night
Eighty-eight nights after the first day of spring, the tea hills of Uji wake up. Mist climbs out of the valley row by row and covers the bushes, leaving only the topmost ring of new leaves shining above it.
The pickers go up before dawn. Their baskets are woven bamboo, and each carries a vermilion cord across the shoulders — on the thickest mornings, that red is all anyone below can see of them.
II. Basket by basket
One sprig is nothing. 8 or more of the same thing on the same hillside make a basketful — and they need not grow in the same row.
What is picked goes into the steamer, is rolled thin on the rolling tray, and ends up in the tea chest. The strainer, the scoop, the cloth and the dipper all have their turn.
III. The golden bud
The old pickers say that wherever the first light of the year falls, that bud turns gold. A golden bud cannot be picked or kept — it counts only for the instant it falls (×2 to ×20).
IV. Opening the garden
The harvest begins only when the owner hangs a vermilion opening tag at the gate. When 4 tags hang at once, the workshop doors open, steam rises from the steamers, and the season's first tea is made.
Inside, one thing is different from the hillside: every golden bud is kept. The multipliers stack up (×2 to ×500) and stay for the whole season.