Tea is the answer to everything, in life, and in this free visual novel

Here's a free visual novel where you run a booze-free tavern, situated on the border between the human and demon realms. As human or demon customers come inside, you have to prepare each an appropriate cup of tea. A brew that will, for example, calm them down, or give them an infusion of energy, depending on the particular ingredients it's made from.

A Tavern For Tea is a handsomely drawn visual novel, where the talking is punctuated every so often by a tea-making minigame. In order to continue the story, you'll need to a) listen to what the customer has asked for, and b) pick the right three ingredients to chuck in the tea pot. That might sound easy, but the rules for brewing aren't explained as well as they could be (it helps to know that you can use the same ingredient more than once).

Still, this is a sweet game about sorting out people's problems, using the primary tool in the British arsenal: a nice cup of tea. None of the ingredients is 'milk', or even 'chocolate hobnobs', but I can forgive that. Maybe. Just about.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.