Harvest Moon Forever: Relax Tea in Sunshine Islands

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Relax Tea in Sunshine Islands

I have written a number of posts about Energy Recovery items in Sunshine Islands without giving much mention to Relax Tea. Veterans of Harvest Moon are aware of the potency of Relax Tea in any Harvest Moon game and Sunshine Islands is no exception in this respect.

Relax Tea in Harvest Moon is the traditional 'folk remedy' that has the potency to rival expensive 'commercial' medicines such as Bodigizer.

In fact, there is an anomaly of sorts in Sunshine Islands in that regular visitors to the Cafe speak often of the marvelous Tea that is made there BUT no Tea never appears on Haila's Menu. The Recipe for Relax Tea, however, is provided to you by Haila, although interestingly enough, the Recipe for the Relax Tea Leaves that are the sole required ingredient to make the Tea, is given by Nick at the Diner. Dialogue about the Cafe's extraordinary Tea, therefore, probably was included to provide hints as to the fact that the Recipe DOES exist, to Haila's knowledge of it and her willingness to impart it to you and to the general efficacy of the beverage.

The reason why I did not include it in my suggestions for Recovery Items that you can make early in the game is twofold. First, although you simply need to offer Nick a common green Weed in order to prompt the Recipe for the Tea Leaves, required ingredients include Herbs that must be gathered in different seasons. You therefore will not have the ingredients in the first Season. Your first opportunity to collect all the required ingredients will be in the Summer season.

If obtaining the ingredients were the only consideration, however, Relax Tea would be included in my suggestions for early Recovery Items and indeed be at the very top of the list, with its high potency in terms of restoring Stamina and very respectable value in terms of recovering Fullness. With Energy Values of 70 SR 16 FL, it is far more potent than Sashimi, Pudding or Steamed Egg Custard.

The real difficulty is in the actual 'difficulty' of the Recipe. In Sunshine Islands, your ability to create any Dish successfully is not simply a matter of having the required ingredients but of having the necessary skill as well. Skill in Cooking, as in any activity in Harvest Moon, is earned through experience. You need to have prepared a fair number of Dishes successfully in order to have even a small chance of creating Relax Tea Leaves. Actually making Relax Tea requires even greater Skill Levels.

Once you have the required degree of skill in Cooking, Relax Tea will move to the top of your list of Energy Recovery Items. In terms of restoring Stamina, Relax Tea is as effective as Bodigizer and is more powerful than Bodigizer in restoring Fullness.

As the rare Red Magic Flower is a required ingredient in making Bodigizer, Relax Tea, with its inexpensive ingredients and its added value in terms of Fullness, is a better choice. Bodigizer XL, however, with twice the Stamina Recovery value both of Bodigizer and Relax Tea is the best Energy Recovery item, but as one of its required ingredients is Bodigizer, it is not as easy to make in quantity as Relax Tea.

The Energy Values of Relax Tea can be boosted by adding a number of optional ingredients. Milk as well as any coloured herb and fruit can be combined with the Tea Leaves to create even more potent Tea.

From the Sunshine Islands Cookbook Recipes Guide, the entries for Relax Tea Leaves and Relax Tea:

Relax Tea

Relax Tea: 1975G
Ingredients: Relax Tea Leaves
Obtain with 1st Relax Tea Leaves from Cafe
Energy Value: +70 SR +16 FL
Optional Ingredients: Milk, Jersey Milk, Hot Milk, Strawberry, Apple, Banana, Grape, Orange, Peach, Pineapple, Grape Punch, All Herbs, All Jams
Note that every Fruit apart from Blueberry can be added to the Recipe.

Relax Tea Leaves

Relax Tea Leaves: 970G
Ingredients: Yellow Herb, Orange Herb, Purple Herb, Indigo Herb, Weed
Obtain with 2nd Weed from Nick at Diner
Energy Value: +4SR +6FL
Optional Ingredients: None

Recipes for Bodigizer and Bodigizer XL are:

Bodigizer

Bodigizer: 690G
Ingredients: Orange Herb, Black Herb, Red Magic Flower
Obtain with 1st Red Magic Flower from Nick at Diner
Energy Value: +70 SR +8FL
Optional Ingredients: None

Bodigizer XL

Bodigizer XL: 970G
Ingredients: Bodigizer, Blue Herb
Obtain with 1st Bodigizer from Nick at Diner
Energy Value: +140 SR +8FL
Optional Ingredients: None

In any year where the Category for the Cooking Contest is Soups/Drinks, Relax Tea should be a guaranteed winner.

Players who have seen the list of items in the completed Cookbook for Sunshine Islands no doubt will be excited by the potential to make Wonderfuls in the Kitchen. The problem with these projects is that they require signficantly higher Cooking Skills than Relax Tea. As with a player's inability to descend beyond a specific level in the Mine until his/her Mining Skill Levels have improved, he/she will be unable to cook 'advanced' Dishes successfully until Cooking Skill Levels improve. You must cook constantly and continue to make NEW Dishes in order to reach the level of expertise necessary for some of the advanced Dishes.

Note: Although you never will be able to see your Character's Farming Degree Point totals, knowing the Cooking Skill Point requirements for each Dish will give you a standard of comparison and some idea when you will be able to succeed in making any given Dish in your Kitchen.

Everything in Sunshine Islands is defined by Point Totals, whether it is a matter of Friendship, Mining, Fishing, Farming, Ranching or Cooking. In terms of Cooking, it is not only when you make Dishes in your Kitchen that you will earn Points to raise your Cooking Skill Levels. There are other actions, such as participating in the Cooking Contest or learning a new Recipe from Haila or Nick that will raise your point total.

Here are all the actions that are associated with your Cooking Degree and their Point Values:
Learn a new Recipe from Haila or Nick: 100 Points
Use a new Recipe to cook a Dish successfully: 10 Points
Cook a Dish for the second or any subsequent time: 5 Points
Ship a Cooked Dish: 2 Points
Participate in the Cooking Contest at the Meadow: 100 Points
Win 1st Prize at the Cooking Festival: 1000 Points
Win 2nd Prize at the Cooking Festival: 700 Points
Win 3rd Prize at the Cooking Festival: 500 Points
Keep a Black Book in your Rucksack: 1 Point per Black Book x Current Year*
*In other words, the Black Book has a similar effect to the Bottle with respect to Fishing and the Stone Tablet with respect to Mining
Add optional ingredients to a Recipe successfully: You will earn 1 Point for each additional ingredients x 3

I have added the Point Total requirements to each Recipe in My Cooking Guide for Sunshine Islands now. Note that having a Point Total that is less than the Total given does not mean that you will not be able to make the Dish in question successfully. It is when the required Point Total is reached that you will have a guaranteed successful result.

Much like the Mining Degree and Fishing Degree Levels, you earn Cooking Skill Points when you perform specific actions or win prizes at the appropriate Festival as well as by cooking dishes.

Here are the Point values for each action:

2 comments:

GalPerson said...: So... from what I've gathered from your guides, you really like Relax Tea because of it's high energy recovery levels. But, it is often hard to make. So, do you have an estimate or exact number of dishes you have to make before you can make Relax Tea? because in HM DS, I made Relax Tea all the time, because i LOVED IT!!!! but that was fairly easy to make, because you could BUY the Leaves at the Sprite Tree Casino. So, I want to make it again/more but I don't have high enough cooking levels. (For example, with the #s, in HM:AWL, you had to make 20 soups/salads before you could make more advanced dish types.); April 17, 2010 at 10:42 AM
Freyashawk said...: I love Relax Tea in any HM game because of its values and because the ingredients are inexpensive, BUT I actually did not include it in my early Tips for beginners in Sunshine Islands because of its Cooking Skill requirement. Cooking Skill Requirements like Mining Skills and anything else in SI are determined by point totals which you never can see. I am going to add the Cooking Skill Point requirements for each Dish to my Cooking Guide as well as a chart that gives the point values for every action your Character performs... I suppose it gives you some measure of comparison even if you never see your Character's precise point total.; April 18, 2010 at 3:52 PM

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