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Tea Sapling

Tea Sapling
Tea Sapling
Type Seed
Grows Tea Leaves
Produces Tea Sapling (1)
Season All
Growth Time 20 days
Cart 750 to 1,250g
Sell Price 250g

The Tea Sapling arrives as a thank you rather than a purchase. Caroline shows off her sun room at two hearts, and the recipe lands in the post the next morning: five Fiber, five Wood and two packets of wild seeds make one sapling. It is planted like a tree on untilled ground, or dropped into a Garden Pot indoors, and twenty days later it is a Tea Bush that hands over a picking of Tea Leaves on each of the seven days that close a season. The bush is never watered, never dies and never has to be replaced, so those twenty days are paid once and no more. Indoors it carries on through Winter, and a Keg turns each day's leaves into Green Tea for twice their worth in about three hours.


Growing

Twenty days of growing, and not a single watering at any point along the way. The sapling behaves like a tree rather than a crop: it goes onto plain untilled soil, lives through the turn of every season and keeps growing outdoors in the snow.

The harvest week is what planting has to be aimed at. A grown bush leafs daily through the closing week of Spring, Summer and Fall, and stands bare the rest of the month. A sapling therefore needs to be rooted before the twenty-second of a season to count as a bush for that season's week, and one planted after it simply waits for the next.

Winter is where the Garden Pot earns its place. A bush potted inside the farmhouse, a shed or the Greenhouse leafs in the cold week along with the rest, which makes tea the one thing on the farm producing to a schedule in the dead season. A pot left outdoors through Winter does not.

Because the bushes are permanent and solid they double as hedging. Animals cannot walk through a planted bush, and a bush never splinters or rots the way a wooden fence does, so a barnyard ringed in tea needs no repairs for the rest of the save. An axe taken to a bush gives the sapling back, so a hedge can be moved rather than written off.

Buying

Crafting is the cheap route and the one most farms use. Fiber comes off the weeds that spring up anywhere on the farm and Wood off any tree, while the two seed packets can be wild seeds of any season, which a forager makes from a morning's gathering. The recipe itself costs nothing beyond getting Caroline to two hearts and stepping through the door at the back of her kitchen.

Caroline sells saplings in person at the Desert Festival, up to ten of them, priced in Calico Eggs rather than gold. For a farm that wants a hedge or a row of pots standing at once, that stall is the quickest way to a dozen bushes.

The Traveling Cart lists a sapling now and then and asks a great deal for it. At that price she is only worth the gold to someone who has not yet reached Caroline's second heart and wants tea growing immediately.

Uses

Crafting a sapling and shipping it pays better than shipping the Fiber and Wood that went into it, which gives a farm with a surplus of both something sensible to do with the pile.

The leaves are the real return. A Keg takes a day's picking and gives back Green Tea in roughly three hours, worth double the raw leaves, and that speed means one Keg can clear a whole week of harvest on its own. A Preserves Jar instead makes Pickled Tea Leaves, worth half again as much as the tea, though the jar takes days rather than hours, so a week of leaves would need several jars running side by side.

Tea Leaves also go into the kitchen, so a potted bush keeps cooking supplied through a Winter when the fields are shut.

The sapling itself goes down badly as a present right across the village.

Notes

Count twenty days back from the end of a season before putting a sapling down. One planted late is not wasted, but its first leaves come a whole season later than the planting suggests.

Put at least one bush in a pot indoors. That single pot is what turns Winter from an empty month into a producing one.

Keep a Keg beside the hedge. Green Tea finishes inside a morning, so the same machine can handle every bush on the farm across the seven days that matter.

All Seeds

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name Image Grows Season Pierre
Acorn Acorn Oak Tree All -
Amaranth Seeds Amaranth Seeds Amaranth Fall 70g
Ancient Seeds Ancient Seeds Ancient Fruit Spring; Summer; Fall -
Apple Sapling Apple Sapling Apple Fall 4,000g
Apricot Sapling Apricot Sapling Apricot Spring 2,000g
Artichoke Seeds Artichoke Seeds Artichoke Fall 30g (Year 2+)
Banana Sapling Banana Sapling Banana All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley -
Bean Starter Bean Starter Green Bean Spring 60g
Beet Seeds Beet Seeds Beet Fall -
Blue Grass Starter Blue Grass Starter Blue Grass Spring; Summer; Fall -
Blueberry Seeds Blueberry Seeds Blueberry Summer 80g
Bok Choy Seeds Bok Choy Seeds Bok Choy Fall 50g
Broccoli Seeds Broccoli Seeds Broccoli Fall -
Cactus Seeds Cactus Seeds Cactus Fruit All -
Carrot Seeds Carrot Seeds Carrot Spring -
Cauliflower Seeds Cauliflower Seeds Cauliflower Spring 80g
Cherry Sapling Cherry Sapling Cherry Spring 3,400g
Coffee Bean Coffee Bean - Spring; Summer -
Corn Seeds Corn Seeds Corn Summer; Fall 150g
Cranberry Seeds Cranberry Seeds Cranberries Fall 240g
Eggplant Seeds Eggplant Seeds Eggplant Fall 20g
Fairy Seeds Fairy Seeds Fairy Rose Fall 200g
Fall Seeds Fall Seeds Blackberry, Common Mushroom, Hazelnut, or Wild Plum Fall -
Fiber Seeds Fiber Seeds Fiber All -
Garlic Seeds Garlic Seeds Garlic Spring 40g (Year 2+)
Grape Starter Grape Starter Grape Fall 60g
Grass Starter Grass Starter Grass Spring; Summer; Fall 100g
Hops Starter Hops Starter Hops Summer 60g
Jazz Seeds Jazz Seeds Blue Jazz Spring 30g
Kale Seeds Kale Seeds Kale Spring 70g
Mahogany Seed Mahogany Seed Mahogany Tree All -
Mango Sapling Mango Sapling Mango All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley -
Maple Seed Maple Seed Maple Tree All -
Melon Seeds Melon Seeds Melon Summer 80g
Mixed Flower Seeds Mixed Flower Seeds Varies Spring Summer Fall -
Mixed Seeds Mixed Seeds Varies Spring Summer Fall -
Mossy Seed Mossy Seed Green Rain Tree All -
Mushroom Tree Seed Mushroom Tree Seed Mushroom Tree All -
Mystic Tree Seed Mystic Tree Seed Mystic Tree All -
Orange Sapling Orange Sapling Orange Summer 4,000g
Parsnip Seeds Parsnip Seeds Parsnip Spring 20g
Peach Sapling Peach Sapling Peach Summer 6,000g
Pepper Seeds Pepper Seeds Hot Pepper Summer 40g
Pine Cone Pine Cone Pine Tree All -
Pineapple Seeds Pineapple Seeds Pineapple All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley -
Pomegranate Sapling Pomegranate Sapling Pomegranate Fall 6,000g
Poppy Seeds Poppy Seeds Poppy Summer 100g
Potato Seeds Potato Seeds Potato Spring 50g
Powdermelon Seeds Powdermelon Seeds Powdermelon Winter -
Pumpkin Seeds Pumpkin Seeds Pumpkin Fall 100g
Qi Bean Qi Bean Qi Fruit All -
Radish Seeds Radish Seeds Radish Summer 40g
Rare Seed Rare Seed Sweet Gem Berry Fall -
Red Cabbage Seeds Red Cabbage Seeds Red Cabbage Summer 100g (Year 2+)
Rhubarb Seeds Rhubarb Seeds Rhubarb Spring -
Rice Shoot Rice Shoot Unmilled Rice Spring 40g
Spangle Seeds Spangle Seeds Summer Spangle Summer 50g
Spring Seeds Spring Seeds Wild Horseradish, Daffodil,; Leek, or Dandelion Spring -
Starfruit Seeds Starfruit Seeds Starfruit Summer -
Strawberry Seeds Strawberry Seeds Strawberry Spring -
Summer Seeds Summer Seeds Grape, Spice Berry,; or Sweet Pea Summer -
Summer Squash Seeds Summer Squash Seeds Summer Squash Summer -
Sunflower Seeds Sunflower Seeds Sunflower Summer; Fall 200g
Taro Tuber Taro Tuber Taro Root All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley -
Tea Sapling Tea Sapling Tea Leaves All -
Tomato Seeds Tomato Seeds Tomato Summer 50g
Tulip Bulb Tulip Bulb Tulip Spring 20g
Wheat Seeds Wheat Seeds Wheat Summer; Fall 10g
Winter Seeds Winter Seeds Crocus, Crystal Fruit,; Snow Yam, or Winter Root Winter -
Yam Seeds Yam Seeds Yam Fall 60g