A tea-making board game takes you deep into Taiwan's tea industry, distilling a century of tea culture
Taiwan was once a major tea exporter, but affected by rising labor and production costs and lacking international competitiveness, the commercial tea export market gradually shrank after the 60th year of the Republic of China, and the domestic tea development policy also shifted from export to domestic sales.
Looking back at the development of the tea industry, most people's memories still stop at Dadaocheng being one of the important export hubs for domestic tea, but they are unclear about the detailed development process, and few have ever delved into the tea-making process. This year, Caocao Design took tea as its main theme and launched the second installment of the Dadaocheng Reversal series, "Taiwan Tea-Making Records," aiming to take Taiwanese people from Dadaocheng to understand Taiwan's century-old tea culture.
From Reversing Dadaocheng to Delving into the Tea Industry
In 2015, Caocao Design launched the board game "Reversing Dadaocheng" on zeczec, starting from local culture and taking players to experience Taiwan through gameplay, setting a record of over a million in crowdfunding.
When talking about Dadaocheng's most important industry, it is none other than tea. When Taiwan tea entered the international market after the port opened for trade, many foreign merchants came to Taiwan to set up trading firms engaged in tea export. Caocao Design founder Cai Huiqiang said that from the past to the present, tea has always been closely tied to ordinary people's lives, and since Dadaocheng rose because of tea-making, after deeper investigation he found that tea occupies one of the key positions in Taiwan's history.
Looking back on the design process of "Reversing Dadaocheng," Cai Huiqiang said that after making "Reversing Dadaocheng," he had even greater ambitions for Taiwan-themed board games. Originally, after "Reversing Dadaocheng" was completed, he planned to extend the theme to the Tamsui riverbank, but there was too much content he wanted to present and he got stuck, so he finally decided to start from local industries to develop a new board game.
Using a Board Game to Learn About a Century of Tea History and Important Figures
In order to develop the second installment of the Dadaocheng Reversal series, "Taiwan Tea-Making Records," the Caocao Design team not only searched for tea literature and visited Dadaocheng on foot, but also cooperated with ASW Tea House, Shansheng Youxing, Dadaocheng Tea School and other organizations to gain a deeper understanding of tea history, culture and tea-making processes.
Cai Huiqiang pointed out that "Taiwan Tea-Making Records" is a tea-making process game. In the game, ships sail upstream along the river, carrying away the rough tea made by players, and the card design incorporates historical tea packaging and tea-making figures, combining important tea history with the game.
During the interview, Cai Huiqiang held card drafts and said that players can play the roles of Wei Jingshi, British merchant John Dodd, the father of Taiwan black tea Arai Kokichiro… and other important figures, and through this learn about these people's contributions to Taiwan's tea development. He said that many historical facts are not necessarily known to everyone. For example, when Arai Kokichiro's son came to Taiwan, he only then learned that his father was the father of Taiwan black tea and had even had a statue erected in his honor.
"Without Dodd's attempt, everything else would have been hard to bring about," Cai Huiqiang pointed out. The figure who left the deepest impression on him was none other than John Dodd, because Dodd did not come to Taiwan to look for tea but to look for camphor. During his investigation, Dodd discovered that Taiwan was suitable for growing tea, and since at the time China's tea-producing areas were far from ports while Taiwan's tea-producing areas were close to ports, this opened up the opportunity for international tea trade.
Starting from Tea-Making to Understand That Making Tea Is Not Easy
In addition to conveying little-known history through the board game, it also lets players understand the tea-making process. After players pick tea leaves from the tea plant, depending on differences in the process, they can produce black tea, green tea and oolong tea.
Pointing at the game board with his finger, Cai Huiqiang said that this game is relatively simple. In the game, players can only do a few things: pick tea, make tea, complete tea, deliver goods, sell domestically, and so on. Each stage has tasks to complete. For example, weather affects tea production conditions, and domestic tea sales can improve one's own tea-making technique, letting players experience the tea-making process and tea history within one hour.
Cai Huiqiang pointed out that this game follows a relatively conventional European-style board game approach, using game tasks to let players interact and experience it, while knowledge-based content is placed in the rulebook, completing the transfer of knowledge through reading. After "Taiwan Tea-Making Records" is launched, he will take this game to a German board game exhibition. He hopes that the depth and gameplay of this game will make foreigners like it, and that through the game more people will learn about Taiwan's century-old tea culture.
