The Tap for Tea Mythic Box: Is it Worth It

Last updated on August 21, 2024

Tap for Tea Mythic Box

There are a host of Magic-related subscription loot boxes out there, and in my explorations of them, I’ve seen quite a few that bring the fun of surprise and a decent amount of value. None is as unique as the boxes from Tap For Tea.

I have never said to myself: “If only there was a box that combined my love of MTG with my love of caffeine!” And I never would have thought of the combination… yet when it came, I found myself having a much better time than I would have thought!

Today I’m going to do a detailed review of the Tap For Tea box and share my unboxing experience with you.

Bottom line: This is the perfect Magic subscription box to order as a one-off gift for the Magic lover in your life whose Magic collection is beyond your understanding. You don’t know what they need or want, but you know they like boosters and will appreciate something unique in the Magic space. Let’s peek in on the details and the pictures of my divine experience!

Some Preliminary Information

Sorcerer's Strongbox | Illustration by Chuck Lukacs

These Tap For Tea boxes range from $31.99-39.99, depending on the time commitment you set up in your order, from one box to a year’s subscription.

I should note, however, that this box was provided to us for free for review purposes.

I should also note that although I have been playing Magic since the 90s, I have been drinking tea for even longer. I love it all, from simple black to pu'er, and my morning wake-up routine is always a cup of strong–but not strong enough you could stand a spoon up inside it–Irish breakfast. This box arrived in the afternoon, so by then I was ready for another cuppa.

Unboxing

The product arrived in an 8-inch-long card storage box, which is also a useful thing to have:

Removing the paper revealed the tea packet and a “bonus surprise item,” a deck of cards designed to help you learn how to read tea leaves. I heard Professor Trelawny’s voice in my head when I saw that, whispering: “Your soul as dry as the pages of the books to which you so desperately cleave.”

Removing the cards revealed another bonus item and the packet of boosters, a stand-alone MTG single, and a sticker. It seems that these boxes can come with anywhere between 1-3 bonus items on average, and having at least two bonus items here allows me to judge the bonus item slot a bit more accurately.

Taking everything out to look at, we have this:

There’s a third bonus item, the Magic color pie pin, so don’t get too jealous of my largesse here!

There were four boosters to delve into, which were awesomely secured in bubble wrap:

Three are really current and one is a nice throwback. There’s also a cool sticker, a single card in a sleeve, and a custom saga card they made for the month’s tea with brewing instructions, which is kind of extra cute:

The card in the sleeve is Archdruid's Charm, which was just shy of $10 when I opened the package.

I won’t regale you with the opening of every pack, although I did pull a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove from the Theros Beyond Death pack, which will go nicely into my green ramp deck with the Charm.

The pin is really cool, and it went right on my Magic bag. The tokens were a cool throwback:

I forgot about these relic tokens! You can adjust the power and toughness with the wheels on the side. I really only have use for the zombie, and since those are all 2/2s, I may just mod the front to represent a zombie army, which will definitely make use of the variable stats!

I can’t seem to find the exact pin online, but the relic tokens and the box of divination cards are each about $8-9 bucks, so we can probably assume that’s the value level of the bonus item in these boxes.

Tea & Divination

Next up was making the tea and trying my hand at divination. Again Professor Trelawny’s words haunted me: “I am sorry to say that from the moment you have arrived in this class, my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don’t remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly Mundane.”

The tea was a very nice raspberry green sencha with bits of raspberry. I’m not usually one for flavored teas, and I was worried about letting the leaves sit in the brew until drinking (which you need to do for divination) for fear that the flavoring would unbalance the cup. But it was lovely!

Then I cracked open the box of divination cards, which at first was puzzling. Why are they cards?

The first dozen or so cards are instructions, including the guide to not use flavored teas. Oops! I learned how to swirl the leaves after drinking, upending on a saucer, and how to understand the parts of the cup in the reading (center of the cup is far future, etc.).

After that, the deck of cards is a bunch of interpretations, alphabetized on the cards. I wondered if a small book might not be better, but since I did this with another person, it was handy to be able to distribute the cards as we saw things and then sort of put them in order.

The interpretations were often positive or negative. For example, thinking of the animals of Bloomburrow, if you see a bat it means “Undertaking will be fruitless,” which seems insulting to fruit bats and is also likely a prediction for what happens if you draft Orzhov bats in Bloomburrow Draft!

My partner found this:

She interpreted it as a rat, which means “Something or someone is not to be trusted.” It seemed on the nose for her day at work, so at least one of us was not hopelessly Mundane!

I saw two things. First, a fish:

This seems more ambiguous a form than her rat, but if it is a fish, it’s “Good news from afar.” I choose to believe that's what will happen to me at Bloomburrow‘s prerelease, as our LGS is a bit of a drive. But I also saw this:

Yeah, so I see a tiger leaping onto a knight fending it off with a sword. The deck didn’t help me with the knight, but a tiger is “Fighting for your desires, something to be overcome.” All of that feels like I’m top 4-ing the prerelease!

Overall Evaluation

Price-wise, I’d say the Tap For Tea Mythic box is about break even if you subscribe at $31.99 a box, with the $5.95 shipping:

If you’re buying it as a one-of, it’s perhaps not quite enough value for yourself.  But I like the price point and creativity as a gift for someone. I don’t want to send a $100 crate of random boosters to my brother for his birthday, but this might be just the thing.

From the perspective of the gift receiver, I think the idea here is pretty charming. It’s an odd combination, but it works. You make a cup of tea and open your cards. Four boosters isn't quite enough for a two-person Draft, so you won’t have the nagging sense that you wish you had some people over to share in the loot. It’s a solo exploration of some items, and the overall journey is pretty fun.

But wait, there’s also SNEAKY VALUE!

If you check out the “Card Shop” on their website, you’ll see this text at the top: “All Card Shop items are only available as add-ons for active Tap For Tea subscribers. We have heavily discounted each item as a way to add more value to your subscription and to show our appreciation for your support.”

They aren’t joking around here. Every packaged item was between 20% and 30% off what you’d pay elsewhere online. The small selection of single cards was right about where you’d expect, but I’d put a premium on their packaging and the relationship you’d have with them for buying singles, especially if you’ve ever had a bad experience buying singles online. Their website also has a little bit more going on behind the scenes too, from giveaways to coffee accessories and boxes.

And none of this really takes into consideration the experience of a new bit of tea every month. If you're curious about tea but a bit overwhelmed, something like this is a nice way to start.

So overall, I’d say you aren’t getting a secret discount on anything here, but you’re paying a reasonable price for an interesting experience, which is my baseline for value in loot-crate-style subscriptions.

Wrap Up

Box of Free-Range Goblins | Illustration by Chris Seaman

There you have it! Please share with us in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord if you’ve received Tap For Tea boxes, and what kind of bonus items you received. Also, I’d love a comment if you are a better tea leaf reader than this Muggle and can interpret the moist blobs better than I did.

So, there’s the tea on Tap For Tea. I often sign off with “happy brewing,” and boy does that ever seem appropriate!