When the Hello Kitty Island Adventure: Tea Garden DLC was first announced, which you can read about here, I was incredibly excited, and that excitement definitely didn't go away when the DLC was finally released! I purchased it right away, and after finally having some time to sit down and explore everything, I’m excited to share my first look at the Tea Garden DLC.
The Tea Garden DLC brings a beautiful new collection of furniture and decorations for your Cabins, allowing you to create your very own Tea Garden, along with 15 new clothing items with over 300 variations, ranging from bonnets and bows to full Regency-inspired outfits for your character. There are also more than 15 new narrative quests to discover throughout Merry Meadows, as well as 38 new recipes, two new food stations, and over 30 new outfits for your Friends and Visitors. With so much centered around decorating, fashion, and new story content, this DLC feels like a lovely little expansion to Merry Meadows.
While this won't be a full, comprehensive guide to everything included in the DLC, I wanted to put together a brief overview of what you can expect when you first start playing. I'll go over how to begin the Tea Garden content, take a look at some of the new furniture, clothing, and customization options included in the DLC, and talk a little about the new decoration mode UI. I'll also touch on some of the other new additions and features, as well as share a few of my first impressions and the things I'm most excited about!
So, let's take a closer look at the Tea Garden DLC! ♡
A quick note: I’m playing on PC through Steam, so keep in mind that some features, functions, controls, or UI elements may look or work a little differently depending on your platform.
How to Begin the Tea Garden DLC
To begin the Tea Garden DLC, talk to Hello Kitty, who will be waiting for you in the Island Plaza. Once you speak with her, she’ll be wearing her beautiful new Tea Garden outfit, and after a little bit of dialogue, she’ll give you all of the furniture and clothing items included in the DLC!
And I don't just mean one of each item. You’ll receive around 10 or more of each furniture and clothing item right from the start! This was honestly such a happy surprise, because I had assumed that the clothing and furniture would be items we would have to unlock as we played through the DLC. And while we can still unlock more of them as we progress, I'll get into that in the next part.
Completing this first interaction with Hello Kitty will also complete the first quest.
The Tea Garden in Merry Meadows
For the next quest, Hello Kitty will ask you to meet her in Merry Meadows, where you’ll find her waiting in a beautiful little Tea Garden setup. Here, she’ll introduce you to the new features included in the DLC, including the Teapot Station, Tray Station, and Tea Garden Register.
The Tea Garden is located just southeast of the Merry Meadows Fields fast-travel point and is surrounded by beautiful flowering rose hedges and stone fences, with a cozy little seating area in the middle. The garden serves as the main hub for the new Tea Garden features, with everything you need to get started with the new recipes and decorations.
There's also a small stone bench where you can find a Tea Tin and Sugar Bowl containing 20 Tea Sachets and 20 Sugar Cubes each day. This is especially helpful when you're first getting started with the new recipes, since you'll have some of the basic ingredients waiting for you right in the Tea Garden.
The Tea Garden Register
The Tea Garden Register is where you can exchange the Pollen Puffs you collect around Merry Meadows for all of the clothing and furniture items included in the DLC, as well as additional Tea Garden cooking stations. This means you're not limited to the items Hello Kitty gives you when you first begin the DLC. If there's a particular outfit or piece of furniture you want more of, you can simply purchase it from the Register.
The best part is that the prices are incredibly generous, with each item costing only 1 Pollen Puff! This makes it really easy to collect as many pieces as you want, so you can mix and match different colors and combinations and decorate your Cabins to your heart's content. I also love that this includes the Teapot and Tray Stations, as well as their miniature versions, which are not only useful for cooking but are also so cute that they can easily double as decorations in your Cabins! ♡
The Teapot Station
The first of the two new cooking stations is the Teapot Station, which lets you make a variety of fancy teas using Tea Sachets along with one or two additional ingredients. The teas can then be gifted to the Island Residents, giving you another fun way to use some of the ingredients you've been collecting around the island.
The Teapot Station is already fully upgraded from the moment you unlock it, allowing you to combine a Tea Sachet with two additional ingredients right away to create even more recipes. This gives you access to the full range of Teapot recipes from the very beginning!
And honestly, these might be some of the prettiest cooking stations in the game. The whole setup feels so perfectly suited to the Tea Garden aesthetic that I can easily imagine using the station as part of a Cabin's decoration, rather than only placing it when I actually need to cook something. ♡
The Tray Station
The second new cooking station is the Tray Station, which uses Flour along with one or two additional ingredients to create a variety of treats, scones, and sandwiches. Just like the Teapot Station, these recipes can be gifted to the Island Residents, giving you another fun way to use some of the ingredients you collect around the island.
The Tray Station is already fully upgraded from the moment you unlock it, allowing you to combine Flour with two additional ingredients right away to create even more recipes. I love that the recipes aren't limited to just sandwiches either, since the little scones and other treats fit the whole afternoon tea theme so perfectly.
And honestly, the food made at this station is so cute! The sandwiches, scones, and treats are arranged on the little tiered trays so beautifully that they almost look more like tiny decorations than actual food. I can already imagine using some of them to create little afternoon tea setups in my Cabins. ♡
Tea Garden Collection
The Tea Garden DLC also adds a new Tea Garden Collection, where you can keep track of the furniture, clothing, and food introduced with the DLC. Interestingly, this collection is almost completely filled out as soon as you begin playing, since Hello Kitty gives you all of the Tea Garden furniture and clothing items right at the start.
The main part you'll still need to work toward is the food collection, with 38 new recipes to discover, including fancy teas, scones, sandwiches, and other afternoon tea treats. I actually really like this setup, since it means you can start experimenting with the new furniture and clothing immediately, while the food collection gives you something to gradually work toward as you play through the DLC.
Quests and Additional Areas
One of the biggest parts of the Tea Garden DLC is its collection of 15+ new narrative quests, which take place throughout Merry Meadows. I haven't completed the DLC yet, and I don't want to spoil the story for myself or for anyone else, but from what I've played so far, the main storyline revolves around helping Hello Kitty, My Melody, Pochacco, Kuromi, Chococat, and more get everything ready for the Tea Garden Ball. It seems like you'll be going on a series of quests with different characters as you gradually prepare for the big event.
There are also some additional quests that require certain Visitors to become 5-star permanent residents on your island, similar to some of the story quests in the main game. I've unlocked most of the Visitors so far, but not all of the ones connected to the Tea Garden quests. Personally, I actually think this is a fun little addition, since it means there are some quests I'll have to come back to later rather than being able to complete the entire DLC all at once. I'm definitely not going to rush through it!
As you progress through the quests, you'll also unlock additional Tea Garden areas around Merry Meadows. These are currently described as temporary landmarks, which makes me wonder whether they'll only appear while you're completing the related quests. I really hope they become permanent additions to Merry Meadows, though, because some of the areas I've seen so far are absolutely beautiful! I'll have to wait and see as I continue exploring the Tea Garden DLC. ♡
High Tea Achievement
The Tea Garden DLC also adds a new High Tea achievement, which you can find in the Achievements app on your Menu Tablet. To complete it, you'll need to complete all of the Tea Garden quests. Since I'm still working my way through the DLC and haven't completed the full questline yet, this is another little goal I have waiting for me as I continue exploring the Tea Garden content!
New Clothing with Plenty of Options
Like I already mentioned, the DLC includes 15 new clothing items, which might not sound like a huge amount at first. However, each piece comes with a huge variety of different color options, bringing the total to over 300 variations! This gives you a lot more freedom to mix and match the new pieces and create outfits in all kinds of different color combinations. The Periwinkle & Pink and Blush options are already two of my absolute favorites, and I can definitely see myself using them a lot! ♡
I've always been a little stingy about using clothing as part of my Cabin decorations, even though I absolutely love the idea of it. A lot of the clothing pieces I've wanted to use have either been limited event items or a little too expensive to craft just for decorating. With this new addition, though, I can finally have a lot more fun incorporating clothing into my Cabin designs without feeling like I'm wasting a rare or expensive item.
And with so many different color options, I don't think these pieces are limited to Tea Garden themed Cabins either. They should fit nicely into all kinds of different decorating styles, while still giving us plenty of options to put together our own outfits. I already have so many ideas for how I want to use them! ♡
Dressing Up Your Friends & Visitors
And of course, the clothing additions aren't just for our own characters! The DLC also adds 30+ new outfits for Friends and Visitors, giving everyone the chance to get dressed up for the Tea Garden festivities. While characters like Hello Kitty, My Melody, and Kuromi already have a huge selection of outfits to choose from, I'm still just as excited to see them in their beautiful matching Tea Garden looks. What I'm probably most excited about, though, is seeing the Island Visitors dressed up! Many of them don't have nearly as many outfit options as our Island Friends, so getting their own fancy Tea Garden outfits feels like such a lovely addition. And I can already guarantee that I'll be dressing up every single one of them to match my new favorite theme! ♡
New Furniture & Cabin Customization
The Tea Garden DLC adds a beautiful collection of 62 new furniture items, giving us plenty of pieces to work with when decorating our Cabins. And that's not even counting all of the customization options available for many of these pieces! When you first start the DLC, Hello Kitty gives you a generous selection of the new furniture right away, and you can use the Tea Garden Register to exchange Pollen Puffs for more whenever you want. This makes it really easy to collect enough pieces to experiment with different Cabin designs.
As with every furniture collection, the Tea Garden pieces have their own Tea Garden tag, so you can easily find them all in one place when decorating your Cabins.
I've also noticed that the Tea Garden furniture fits together incredibly smoothly. The hedges, fences, paths, and other decorative pieces can be placed together so seamlessly that they look almost continuous rather than like separate items. Some pieces can also be layered together beautifully, making it much easier to create a space that feels like one cohesive design.
I haven't tried decorating any other Cabins with older furniture since the update yet, though, so I'm not sure whether this is something that comes from the new decoration system or if the Tea Garden furniture was specifically designed this way. I'll definitely have to experiment more as I continue decorating! ♡
A New Way to Decorate
One of the things that makes all of this customization even more exciting is the new decoration mode UI that was introduced with the latest Hello Kitty Island Adventure update. While this isn't exclusive to the Tea Garden DLC, it has completely changed the way I decorate and makes customizing all of these new furniture pieces so much easier.
There are also many customization options available for the new furniture, including some beautiful fabric patterns. There are so many lovely designs to choose from, and combined with the different color options, they can completely change the look of a piece. I especially love being able to experiment with different combinations while decorating.
You can now customize your furniture directly while you're in decoration mode, rather than having to place a customization table somewhere in your Cabin and use it every time you want to change something. This might sound like a small change, but it makes such a huge difference when you're experimenting with different colors and patterns. I can finally switch between different options while I'm decorating without constantly having to stop and run over to a customization table!
I won't go too deeply into the new decoration mode here since it's a much bigger update that deserves a post of its own, but I'm already loving how much more convenient it makes decorating. And with all the new Tea Garden furniture and customization options, the timing couldn't have been better. ♡
Final Thoughts
When the Tea Garden DLC was first announced, I already knew I was going to love it. I'm absolutely obsessed with Bridgerton and the whole Regency and tea garden aesthetic, so this DLC felt like it was made for me. But even with all those expectations, I honestly didn't expect the items to be this beautiful! The sheer amount of content, combined with how generous the DLC is with its furniture and clothing, has honestly been such a lovely surprise. And for such an affordable DLC, I honestly think it was absolutely worth every penny.
There is one thing I do want to mention, though, and I don't mean this as a complaint because I'm still extremely happy with the DLC. I just think this theme could have been the perfect opportunity to finally introduce outdoor decoration, something I know many Hello Kitty Island Adventure players have been hoping for for a long time.
I don't necessarily expect us to be able to decorate outdoors everywhere, but can you imagine if this DLC had added a completely new area, perhaps as an extension of Merry Meadows, where we could decorate our very own Tea Garden outdoors? It would have fit the theme so perfectly while giving us at least a little taste of what so many of us have been craving.
Honestly, I think I would have gladly opened my wallet even wider for something like that! 😂 But even without it, I'm absolutely in love with the Tea Garden DLC and can't wait to keep exploring everything it has to offer. I already have so many Cabin decorating ideas, and I have a feeling this is going to keep me busy for quite a while. ♡
Credits
Icon images and some information were sourced from the Hello Kitty Island Adventure Wiki.
All in-game screenshots and opinions are my own. ♡
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