Febrary 2024 - Afternoon Tea

Tap on any hint box to view it.

Location - Gathering

  1. The 5x5 grid at the bottom looks like a bit of a mess. Is there any way to focus on some parts of it?
  2. The answer is 7 letters.
  3. What happens if you focus on just the squares in the grid that have circles in them?
  4. TEA TIME

Tiered Stand

  1. The key words in the flavor text are “make sure every pair of consecutive items is arranged appropriately.”
  2. Here’s a couple placements: GLASS follows LOOKING, PRESS precedes RELEASE, and CROSS follows DOUBLE.
  3. The words should be arranged in the grid so if you read any two consecutive words in a tier, it makes a common phrase or expression.
  4. Here are some more pairings: POGO STICK, POINT BLANK, MAIL SLOT
  5. [Partial solution] Here are the word chains for each tier: a) LOOKING GLASS CEILING FAN MAIL SLOT MACHINE LEARNING b) POGO STICK FIGURE SKATE PARK BENCH PRESS RELEASE c) DOUBLE CROSS REFERENCE POINT BLANK SPACE STATION WAGON
  6. The numbers underneath the words in the stand are the numbers 1-18 and there are 18 blanks at the bottom of the page before the arrow. The blanks only have room for one letter, which letter should be selected from each word?
  7. The illustrations above each word on the stand have a distinctive visual element corresponding to a number. This will provide an index for that word.
  8. [Partial solution] Filling in the indexed letters in order of the numbers underneath the blanks produces: FIRST LETTER OF A NAME.
  9. Read the extracted phrase as a crossword clue.
  10. INITIAL

Sandwiches

  1. Any 0 needs all diagonals avoiding it.
  2. Any 2 on the border needs both diagonals touching it.
  3. Numbers where some information is already known can sometimes be solved. This is true for example when a 2 has two diagonals avoiding it or 2 diagonals touching. For 3 this is true when there are 3 diagonals touching or 1 diagonal avoiding. Etc.
  4. Loops cannot be formed, so once there are three diagonals that form 3 sides of a diamond, the fourth diagonal needs to point the opposite way that the diamond’s side would.
  5. Any time there are two 1s next to each other, the 4 diagonals on the outsides must avoid the 1s. The 2 diagonals in the squares bordering the 1s need to have one touching each of the 1s.
  6. The grid has 5 sets of 5 boxes shaded. What other settings are there strings of 5 symbols, each of which has one of two options?
  7. Use binary to decode the slashes in the shaded boxes.
  8. CREAM

Scones

  1. Each phrase in each column is a crossword clue. Some have more than one reasonable answer, but a good starting point is to start writing in possible answers.
  2. The ? column represents the secret ingredients, and will always be filled in with a single letter.
  3. The lengths of the spread and scone word plus one (the secret letter) should be equal to the length of the treat word.
  4. Recall these treats are assembled like sandwiches.
  5. Each assembled treat is made by putting the spread word inside the scone word and adding one letter somewhere (you could have a secret ingredient baked into the scone or added to the spread!). For example, the first treat is (TRIO) + MANY + [M] = MA(TRI[M]O)NY = MATRIMONY.
  6. [Partial solution] Reading down the secret ingredients column, we get (Another word for) ME + (Present tense of) FLUNG + (Secret ingredient) L. What is the final assembled treat?
  7. FILLING

Desserts

  1. While some of them aren’t solvable without more information, each of the 8 grids arranged in a circle will get one solution. The topmost grid in particular has a very straightforward solution.
  2. The macarons grid does not have espresso means the first box in the second row doesn’t have anything present. The third box in the second row of the Victoria sponge cake does have something there. Feel free to use your favorite notation to mark something being there vs not there!
  3. The topmost grid has no spices, and the NW grid will have exactly 1 square with a spice.
  4. To solve the rest of the grids, you’ll need the extra information in the grids in the bottom. These numbers represent the total, among either the cake or the cookie grids, number of desserts with spices in that position. For example, the top-left 1 in the cakes grid represents the fact that exactly 1 of the four top-left squares in the 4 cake grids is filled in.
  5. Once you have all the grids filled in, you’ll need to extract some letters. Notice that there are exactly 2 squares filled in among the 8 grids for each position. Also notice that the grids are arranged in 8 directions relative to the center.
  6. Use semaphore for each position. i.e. look at the 2 directions for the filled in top-left squares, then the top second from the left squares, etc.
  7. EGG SHELL

Meta - Mmm..Tea

  1. A great place to start is by figuring out how to use the answers to the previous puzzles in this puzzle.
  2. The previous answers are the answers to the across crossword clues.
  3. Many letters can now be filled in using the numbers on the outsides, in particular three of the letters in the left column and all of the letters in the fourth row.
  4. Now it will be important to solve the down clues. It may be helpful to write unused letters for each row nearby and cross them out as you go.
  5. Once you have filled in the grid, read the letters indicated by the tea bags from left to right.
  6. GINGER

Bonus - The Tea Menu

  1. The first step will be finding all the teas in the grid, but they won’t appear exactly as they would in a traditional word search.
  2. EARL GREY is a great first word to find. DAEJAK may also be a good one, since there aren’t that many Js or Ks.
  3. Each tea appears “at an angle”, where the letters are broken up into equal segments, each segment appears normally going vertically or horizontally, and segments are off by one row or column from each other.
  4. Once all teas have been found, the second bolded section of the flavor text will be relevant.
  5. Take one extra segment of letters for each tea, continuing the adjustment by 1 row or column. For example, take the letters FIRS that appear after GREY but 1 row below.
  6. [Partial solution] Taking all these letters in the order of the teas gives the instruction: FIRST LETTER OF EACH OF THE SECOND SEGMENTS
  7. Taking the first letter of each of the second segments gives the final answer.
  8. GARDEN VARIETY