Rather disappointing. 
While I loved the concept of magic using tea, the overall story was just bad and didn't meet my expectations. The main plot follows the heroin Ning, and she goes through a competition in order to be an officially recognised Shennong-shi (the tea magician) but there are much more going behind the scenes of the competition that has clearly an impact on Ning, yet none of those are shown. Instead we wait for something to happen out of nowhere in the middle of the competition and we don't even know how and why it happened. It just happened bc the author decided so. A lot of events don't even make sense. Like

like what the heck was this betrothal between the princess and her cousin about. Was it there just to make Ning jealous? Cuz other than that, it didn't serve any purpose. Maybe it would have, if we actually knew what went on behind the scenes.

Ning was flat out unlikeable bc she had no personality. Even after finishing the book I still don't what she's like, other than that she gets angry on impulse and that she has no other interesting traits. 

I wasn't fan of the writing but it was ok. Didn't stick out that much but it didn't bother me either. Except maybe for the food descriptions. While I enjoyed it at first, they quickly became annoying, especially during moments of tension. Like who takes time to appreciate food when you're in a dire situation ? Definitely not me. The stress would make me lose my appetite and the sight of food would make me sick but that's just me.

The romance started ok. I'm not a fan of strangers to lovers, but I was looking forward for a potentially cute couple but I was disappointed once again. The characters had no chemistry and I didn't even understand what they loved abt each other. 

The only thing that made me finish this book is the fate of the sister which, thankfully got handled well. And that mystery being solved, I'm no longer interested in anything else so I'm just not going to read the next volume. And that's it.