The Duchess' 50 Tea Recipes (2019-2022) - :)
Sometimes a story isn't sure what genre it is, and that's ok. If someone had come up to me and said, "hey, you're really going to enjoy this one, it's a manga about tea and establishing a business but somehow there is also a transmigration romance" I would have nodded slowly and backed away. In a weird sense, with this one, I came for the tea but stayed for the romance. If you're feeling like you're in a mood to learn about different teas casually and also look at pretty pictures then this would already be for you, but I think this manhwa offers a bit more even if the tea education element is pretty dominant.
Chloe Battenberg is a bit of a sad sack. She married a guy who isn't very fond of her, she lives in a house full of people who don't respect her or treat her well, and her reputation and social scene outside of her house is somehow even worse. This is the stinking life that the modern protagonist migrates into, and promptly sets about her task of turning around Chloe's life through business acumen and a love of tea. The new Chloe is a competent, compassionate, intelligent woman and it doesn't take long for her icy husband Alphonse to start to take notice. Watching Alphonse take baby steps from stiff and frigid to a supportive and loving partner made this an enjoyable romance, even if the vast majority of the content is tea-centric.
I liked this manhwa, and I liked Chloe and Alphonse as a couple, but what set it apart for me was not only that the central couple believably grew to love one another over time, but that the story goes out of its way to chase down how tea and the commerce of tea sparked social change with far reaching consequences. Usually these business mogul manhwa just focus on the money and not on how the lives of people around them can change as well. Also props to the author that, in an otherwise very staid and proper seeming romance, implied at several points that Alphonse regularly started having sex with Chloe so vigorously that she couldn't move for solid days. Congrats to everyone involved in that.
