Webcomic / 50 Tea Recipes from the Duchess

Can you brew tea for me again?

"Before I woke up in this body, I loved drinking tea. Tea was my only comfort through my 28 years of life under everyone's scrutiny. Even if my boss lectured me endlessly, a cup of tea could make me happy for a while."

50 Tea Recipes from the Duchess (The Duchess' 50 Tea Recipes in Korean) is a Korean webcomic by Ant Studio, based on the light novels of the same name. The comic has been licensed in English by Tapas Media and can be found here.

Park Hajeong is an overworked accountant in South Korea with no friends or family, whose only comfort in life is brewing the perfect cup of tea. On the day Hajeong is fired from her terrible job, she drinks herself into unconsciousness and winds up isekai'd into the life of one Duchess Chloé, beautiful lady of the noble Battenberg House and wife of the dashingly handsome Duke Alphonse. Living the life of a Duchess should be a nice change of pace for poor Hajeong, except for the fact that Chloé is dismissed by her cold husband, disrespected by the manor's servants, and disliked by all her "friends" in the Empire's upper class. The old Chloé was a timid, insecure woman who let everyone mistreat her for fear of being hated. The new Chloé isn't going to put up with that.

Determined to make the best of her situation, "Chloé" makes her first request of her husband since their wedding day over a year prior: she'd like some tea. Her request raises some eyebrows because in Chloé's world, the nobility disdains Hajeong's beloved tea as a bitter, barbaric beverage. Anyone who can afford to drinks coffee or wine instead. But Chloé isn't going to let that stop her from enjoying her tea, and sharing it with anyone willing to try some.

Chloé's newfound confidence and passion put her on track to rebuild her reputation and regain the respect of her household. Her personality shift also catches the eye of her husband, who makes a request of his own: he'd like Chloé to brew him this strange new drink. Will Chloé be able to win over even the cold Duke's heart with a warm cup of tea?

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50 Tea Recipes from the Duchess contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Alphonse's father, Duke Ludwig Battenberg, was emotionally and physically abusive to his son. From the age of three, Alphonse was ordered to study history, law, etiquette, and swordsmanship from sunup until well after nightfall. Ludwig demanded that Alphonse show no emotion during his training, and punished the young boy harshly for any slip-up. When Alphonse rebelled against this treatment and questioned why he was being raised in this manner, his father had him locked away in a coat closet for months until the boy's will was broken and he submitted to his father's demands. He dies when Alphonse is a young teen, and this leaves the boy in the loving care of Ms. Mason, but even with her love and care helping undo most of the damage, it's implied that Alphonse still carries the mental trauma of his father's actions.
  • Some 80 chapters in it's revealed that the original Chloé's parents, Count and Countess Gray, were emotionally abusive towards Chloé as a child. They refused to let her pursue an education like her brother because they believed it would be wasted on a girl. They made it abundantly clear to Chloé from a young age that they saw her as a bargaining chip to be married away when she came of age, and when that happened she would belong totally to her future husband — they even took to calling her an "outsider" to their own family. Their treatment of the original Chloé resulted in her rock-bottom self esteem and her nigh-pathological fear of rejection as an adult. The Gray's attitude hasn't changed in the two years since Chloé's marriage. Although they're polite at first, they only go to the trouble of visiting her at her new home because they think they'll be able to get some money out of her after squandering their assets on a business deal gone awry, and when "Chloé" refuses to give them what they want they quickly turn violent. Unbeknownst to the Grays, their anxious, biddable daughter has been replaced by the headstrong Hajeong, who now has the unwavering support of her husband Alphonse — the same Alphonse who had sworn to use the full weight of his title, finances, and connections to destroy anyone who attacked or dishonored his wife.
• Art Evolution: The characters in the later chapters are drawn differently from their earlier-chapter selves—not because of aging but because of a gradual change in artstyle. It's most notable on Cholé who starts off the story looking like a noble woman her age, but because of the artstyle shift and also in part to a change in how her hair is styled, looks slightly younger by the end. Still an adult woman, but definitely younger than she is.
• Babies Ever After: The epilogue shows that the couple was finally able to have a child: a beautiful girl named Evangeline, or Eva for short, who inherits the beauty of both her parents and of course, her mother's love for tea, something Eva herself shows to be an expert at already when she is introduced as a young child.
• Bad to the Last Drop: With tea's popularity suddenly skyrocketing thanks to Chloé's campaigning, there are of course unscrupulous merchants trying to make some quick cash on counterfeit products. When an acquaintance complains to Chloé that that last batch of tea she bought made her physically ill, Chloé takes it upon herself to investigate. She goes undercover as a buyer, and the merchant her acquaintance purchased the tea from offers her a sample of disgusting, foul-smelling water while claiming it's high quality tea. Chloé inspects his wares and finds the prepackaged tea he's selling contains random leaves, wood chips, and dried ink to make the resulting beverage darker. She promptly responds by taking actions to have him arrested for item fraud.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: If the epilogue is to be believed, Alphonse doesn't take kindly to boys speaking with his daughter to where Chloé has to intervene to keep him from potentially scaring off any of Eva's friends.
• Cardboard Box of Unemployment: Happens in the first chapter. When a risky project Hajeong's boss foisted off on her fails spectacularly, said boss orders her to resign so that he can save face. The next panel shows Hajeong tearfully walking away from her office building as the sun sets, carrying a Bankers Box with books and papers inside.
• Child Prodigy: Chloé and Alphonse's daughter Eva is noted at a young age of six to do well in her lessons and even speak at a comparison to children two years older than her, not to mention she's knowledgeable concerning tea like her mother.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Alphonse starts out as the Ice Queen, having been molded into a cold, emotionally stunted man by his cruel and abusive father. He was content to ignore his wife so long as she kept to herself and eventually provided him with an heir, but the sudden personality change "Chloé" undergoes doesn't escape his notice. At first he's intrigued by her newfound confidence and her genuine passion for tea. Over time, the warmth and kindness Chloé shows him breaks down his defenses, and he comes to love her earnestly. When rumors start swirling that Chloé's inability to conceive after two years of marriage means she's infertile, and that Alphonse is going to divorce her for failing to provide an heir, he holds an extravagant party for the sole purpose of publicly announcing that he loves his wife and will throw the full weight of his ducal power into punishing anyone who dares to slander her.
• Defusing The Tykebomb: Part of Alphonse's backstory with Ms. Mason. She spent years trying to deprogram him of as much of his abusive father's lessons and Alphonse's personal traumas as she could after Ludwig died. While she succeeded in helping Alphonse find a way through much the damage, the emotional scars remain deep in and even partially explain Alphonse's personality at the beginning. By the end of the story, he's gotten much better thanks to Chloé's love and support as well as his own character development.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Colleen's attempts to plead for her life after she is caught by Alphonse's knights, hoping that Chloé would be merciful to her. Chloé, the same woman she has been ruthless to since childhood for the sake of making sure SHE wouldn't be bullied because of her poorer lifestyle and went out of her way to try and murder once she realized that Chloé was becoming a better person (in reality it was cause Hajeong swapped bodies with the real Chloé). And Colleen REALLY thinks that it will all be swept under the rug just because she begged. The look on her face when Alphonse tells her that it was CHLOÉ who gave him full rights to punish Colleen as he sees fit sums up everything perfectly.
  • Ariana's plan to destroy Chloé is to frame her for a health code violation by paying a man to break into Chloé's shop and placing dead rats everywhere. However, because she had thrown a violent tantrum at the mention of Chloé in front of the last friend she had left, that very same former friend warned Chloé of Ariana's insanity and intentions, which in turn lead to Chloé planting safety measures that lead to Ariana's arrest. It happens again when, after being caught by royal guards, Ariana tries to publicly slander Chloé by claiming she was a vulgar wife in bed with her husband, to which Alphonse himself comes in and berates her, reminding her of the vow he made to punish those who slander Chloé with the full force of his ducal power, and tells Ariana that she has doomed her family to ruin as he vows to ERASE her family's name from the noble family registry. Ariana begs Alphonse to leave Chloé, claiming that Chloé was undeserving of him and that she should be the one who owns his affection, which Alphonse shoots down coldly by revealing that he would NEVER love her, even if he was reborn in the past anew. When she realizes all she did was make the man she one-sidedly loved thoroughly hate her for what she did, her own horrified face as well as her broken pleas for him to look at her again are exactly as imagined.
• Dramatic Irony: One of the reasons Colleen keeps tormenting Chloé even after multiple signs she's changed is because she simply can't believe that Chloé would ever grow out of her timid character (a character that remember, "Colleen" helped create in order to escape potential bullying as a child). Much later, Hajeong discovers that the original Chloé took over her original body and said woman has started to become more less timid than she was prior to being swapped, ultimately proving Colleen was wrong about the idea that Chloé could ever change and showing that she was the one that truly lacked the ability to change and died for it.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Colleen is SO insistent that Chloé would never change her old pathetic ways that she writes off all the servants' words of gratitude toward her as nothing and even physically assaults a kitchen maid who comes to Chloé's defense (interestingly, this same kitchen maid was once a scapegoat of the old Chloé's actions when she got punished for a mistake old Chloé made and has since come to accept her master's change of heart after new Chloé tells her that she doesn't have to forgive her master). These actions are what help contribute to Colleen's eventual death as by the time she does wrap her head around Chloé being a genuinely reformed woman, Chloé has gotten wise to Colleen's antics and Colleen has been outed as an attempted murderer for her earlier action of knowingly sending Chloé to a monster infested forest with hopes that she would either die or become disfigured from an attack by the monstrous wildlife there. Heck, with that context in mind, her attempts to plead for mercy from Alphonse and addressing Chloé for the first time in a positive light by saying "the merciful madam" could come off as her trying to use false apologies and honey sweetened words to escape punishment, as if she had forgotten that perhaps that same "merciful madam" would probably still remember all the nasty things Colleen had done to her. Thankfully she doesn't appeal to Alphonse's graces and pays for her crimes with her life after first, a very harsh punishment from Alphonse and then a sentencing from the judge. Colleen ends up on the gallows for the price of her ego being unable to handle Chloé's new self. And it's made even more clear when we finally learn the fate of the original Chloé: she had actually swapped bodies with Haejeong, and in her time in Haejeong's old life, she had managed to adjust very well and even learn to become as confeidant as Haejeong, further proving that Colleen's words of Chloé being incapable of change were absolutely wrong.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Chloé's country resembles a 19th century European monarchy. The tea she purchases comes from areas that would otherwise be India and China, but have different names in this world, although some names of teas such as Assam and Darjeeling are mentioned. In Chloé's world, the "great country to the East" is called "On".
• Fashion-Shop Fashion Show: When Alphonse tells Chloé he wants to buy her some dresses, he takes her to a shop that sells cute nightgowns and revealing negligees. After Chloé gets her measurements taken, Alphonse prods her to try on some of the shop's samples. What follows is a fashion show with an increasingly flustered Chloé trying on skimpier and skimpier nighties at Alphonse's behest, and all while he hilariously seems unperturbed by the increasing skin showing on his embarressed wife.
• Fictional Earth: The general layout and cultures of the world seem to be similar to 19th century Earth, but there are different place names. Chloé notes that the landmass that was India back on Earth has a different name, but it produces an almost identical tea.
• First Friend: Lady Fortnum is this for Chloé after she helps her during a tea party she hosts. Chloé even becomes her son's godmother.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Hajeong and the original Chloé, who underwent a "Freaky Friday" Flip with the modern white-collar worker Hajeong stuck in the role of an aristocrat's wife and the manner-born Chloé thrust into a salary worker's shoes. Both girls wind up adapting to their new lives and are quite happy with how things have turned out. When Hajeong seeks the assistance of a "Saint" in order to establish contact with the original Chloé, the two wish each other well in their new lives and even agree to cheer each other on, knowing they won't be able to contact each other again after their brief reunion.
• Flower Motifs: Flowers surround Chloé in a non-diegetic fashion whenever she looks particularly beautiful or happy. In later chapters, this happens whenever Alphonse looks at her lovingly, or whenever the two kiss.
• Food Porn: Tea porn. And there is LOTS of it. In her previous life, Hajeong's hobby was studying and drinking teas from all over the world. She amassed an impressive body of knowledge on all subjects having to do with tea; brewing and mixing tea blends, how to heat the water to conserve the oxygen content, making up for a shortage or overabundance of minerals in water from different regions, types of glassware that should be drunk out of to enhance each tea's profile (and their manufacturing methods), and of course, the history of the teas themselves. Whenever she describes the unique flavors and growing conditions of the tea she brews, readers are treated to lovingly rendered illustrations of fruits, flowers, and tea plantation fields evocative of the flavor profile of the tea. This serves as a visual reminder that Hajeong is an expert on the subject.
• For Want Of A Nail: Chloé's "discovery" of a scurvy cure in the form of popularizing rosehip tea supplied by a territory known for their roses has an unintentional effect of making imported goods, including tea, more accessible due to sailors not longer getting sick from scurvy on long trips.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: After more than 100 Chapters of not knowing what happened to the original Chloé (during which Hajeong has recurring nightmares that Chloé's consciousness will return and demand her body back), Hajeong finally finds a way to establish contact with Chloé. She discovers that Chloé's consciousness was transferred to Hajeong's body in modern-day South Korea. Hajeong tries to apologize for taking over Chloé's life, but Chloé stops her and insists that she's much happier living Hajeong's life — without the responsibilities and expectations that weighed her down before the swap, Chloé is free to slowly build up her confidence and pursue the education she was denied in her childhood home.
• Giving Radio to the Romans: A Downplayed example, but Hajeong introduces certain modern conveniences and information to Chloé's 19th-century-esque world that might otherwise have taken decades (or longer) to develop or be discovered:
  • Chloé notices that one of the manor's food suppliers has a problem with an overstocked warehouse full of cheese, and offers him a marketing solution to get rid of the cheese (without having to sell it at a loss) if he'll share the profits with her. When he agrees, she tells him to hide a single gold coin in each wheel of cheese and promote it as "lottery cheese" — customers who would otherwise get their cheese from other sellers will flock to his business on the chance that their purchase of cheese contains the coin. This works out so well said supplier not only fulfills his end of the deal, he even gives Chloé extra presents on top of it as a thank you.
  • When Chloé opens her own business selling tea, jam, and pastries, she enforces modern sanitation standards on her kitchen staff. That includes hand washing, hair nets, and a no-tolerance policy for vermin in the shop or back rooms (and no cats either, which would have been the prevalent form of pest control back in the day). Any restaurant or shop that wants to sell her products has to follow her standards and submit to an inspection of their premise before she'll allow them to become a business partner.
  • Chloé creates a cure for scurvy in the form of rosehip tea (which Chloé knows to be packed with vitamin C) that can be easily be stored abroad ships, and is awarded the country's highest civilian honor for her miraculous "discovery." When asked how she knew rosehip tea would cure the terrible disease, she invents a story about having met an orphan with scurvy in the past who was cured when she recommended rosehip tea for the drink's energy boosting qualities.
  • Sweet potatoes have been recently "discovered" in Chloé's world, but they have a bad reputation for being ugly produce that only the poor are desperate enough to eat, so not many farmers are willing to grow them. Chloé knows sweet potatoes are a healthy food that can provide a cheap, sustainable supplement to the nation's diet. She raises the produce's profile first by having Alphonse wear a sweet potato flower in his buttonhole to garner interest amongst the nobility, then by introducing a special seasonal menu at her shop that's loaded with sweet potato-infused teas and desserts. Once the nobility has gone into a full-blown sweet potato frenzy, farmers all over the country begin to grow the crop. The surplus of sweet potatoes makes the crop available to even the poorest kitchens, while the popularity of the ingredient means no one will turn their nose up at it.
  • After commissioning a local pottery maker to create a line of tea pots, tea cups, and other crockery for her restaurant, Chloé suggests that he experiment with using cow bone powder in his next batch of porcelain. Though the pottery maker is skeptical of using such an odd ingredient and even points put how such an ingredient being made public will probably not be well met by the nobles, he ultimately admits that he needs to innovate in order to keep up with the fine pottery being imported from On (the equivalent of China in their Fictional Earth), and is ultimately overjoyed when her suggestion leads to porcelain that is lighter, stronger, and more beautiful than anything he's ever created before. Chloé has prompted the pottery maker to "invent" bone china.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: The endlessly beautiful wardrobe Chloé gets to wear as a duchess is full of huge frilly gorgeous ballgown affairs, even if the fashions do trend towards Hollywood Costuming when it comes to necklines, decoration, and cut.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Ariana Bartlet deeply, to the point of obsession, loves Alphonse and resents Chloé for marrying him. She even goes so far as to try to sabotage Chloé's business and get Chloé arrested in order to get her out of the picture, believing that Alphonse will abandon Chloé and return Ariana's affections. Take a guess how well that works out.
  • Arthur develops into this as well, as the Emperor starts relying more on Chloé and Alphonse than his own reckless child. Arthur's jealousy over the trust his father places in the Duke and Duchess combines with his own insecurities in the form of a self-destructive compulsion to undermine Alphonse and "win" Chloé's affection back at any cost. When that fails he turns to slandering Chloé's business and attacking Alphonse's advice for the Emperor, hoping to score his father's favor by tarnishing the Battenberg reputation.
• Hero of Another Story: The original Chloé has been living as Hajeong the entire time Hajeong's been living in Chloé's body. By the time Hajeong is able to contact her (112 chapters in), Chloé has adjusted to living on Earth better than either of them expected. After waking up alone and confused in Hajeong's apartment, Chloé was able to make use of modern technology to explore and learn about the world. With access to Hajeong's savings, Chloé figured out how to live modestly while pursuing the education that was denied to her by her parents. Without the weight of expectations from her family and her status as a Duchess, the original Chloé is slowly overcoming her shyness. She thanks Hajeong for giving her a "new life," where she can decide her own fate and have hope for the future.
• Hidden Depths: The original Chloé turns out to have been living as Hajeong after she swapped bodies with her and was able to adjust to modern society and technology well for someone who had no prior context of the world she was living in unlike Hajeong. Also, the original Chloé always wanted to pursue education, but was denied by her family, prompting her to take advantage of her situation in Hajeong's body to finally do so.
• Hollywood Costuming: In chapter 83 Chloé and Alphonse ring in the new year for 1766, but the costuming in the series as a whole borrows more heavily from the silhouettes of the late 19th and early 20th century than it does the 1760's:
  • Rather than the famously wide panniers seen in real world mid-to-late 1700's court dress, the skirts of women's fashion in the comic tend to follow a more a-line or bustled shape (similar to styles seen between the 1880's and 1910's). Mutton-chop sleeves abound (which first emerged in the 1820's and returned in full force during the 1890's). There are also suits made up of blouses and jackets with separate skirts — a style which wouldn't come into fashion for working women (never mind nobility) until the mid 1800's.
  • Chloé wears her long hair loose, which would have been unusual (even scandalous) for a married woman of the time, when elaborately tall up-dos and powdered wigs were standard fare for nobility. Other noble women in the series wear equally anachronistic hairstyles like pigtails, bobs/ flips, and high side-ponytails.
  • The menswear of the nobility is composed of suits with long trousers, fitted jackets, military-inspired greatcoats, and jabots/ cravats/ neckties — all elements which didn't come into vogue until the 1800's.
• How Unscientific!:
  • 90 chapters in, Chloé invents the afternoon tea service to cater to the empire's afternoon hunger pangs. It's mentioned that the time for dinner and sleep has been pushed back for nobles and commoners alike, because wizards invented mana-powered light globes less than a decade ago and the improved illumination allows for work, study, and social activities to continue into the night. Prior to the reveal that wizards and magic light sources are a part of the series, there had been no mention of magic or mana-powered Magitek artifacts.
  • Later, Chloé is able to prove that her store's products have been tampered with because she arranged for magic orbs that record their surroundings to be installed in her shop. No prior mention had been made of "recording orbs" or other similar Magitek.
• Inconsistent Dub: Up until Tapas picked up the series, translations to English were only undertaken by hobbyist translators, so there are inconsistencies in the names of even the main characters. Vadenberg/Vandenberg/Battenberg is the most glaring inconsistency. Thankfully, in the Tapas translation, the name of Alphonse's house is settled to be Battenberg.
• Inconvenient Attraction: In a bitter case of irony, after spurning the affections of the original Chloé, Arthur is in constant denial that he's attracted to Chloé (really Hajeong in Chloé's body), knowing she's already married to Alphonse. He tries many times to get her to love him after noticing her changes, though he himself still denies his own feelings, but he eventually admits it to himself at the end, but only after he's put into exile for insubordination against his father, the Emperor.
• Insane Troll Logic: Colleen has one of the most ludicrous reasons for wanting to bring down Chloé's reputation. Since Colleen came from a fallen noble family who had lost almost everything, her past bullying of Chloé since their childhood stems from her not wanting to be the victim of higher ranked noble children's own ruthless bullying. This inferiority complex of hers carried to adulthood, where her bullying, while more subtle since she still worked for a powerful man like Alphonse who could still punish her severely for anything that could possibly ruin his house's reputation, was solely so that Chloé would always be seen as pathetic and that Colleen would remain always on top and never bullied. Yes. Really. That logic is in fact as insane as it sounds, especially when you also realize that Colleen doesn't even consider the possibility of Chloé growing a spine and finally standing up to her, even after Chloé literally smacks her smug grin off her face at the end of Chapter 2 and finally uses the authority she has as a duchess. It is ultimately this complex of hers as well as her own inability to accept Chloé's new attitude that leads her to her death on the gallows after her attempted murder on Chloé gets exposed.
• Lightning Glare: Happens in chapter 34; Alphonse got jealous when Prince Arthur asked to have tea with Chloé alone, insisting that he be the one to have tea instead, leading to this trope.
• Loving a Shadow: The nature of Ariana's love for Alphonse is this as she's only attracted to his surface and public appearance than to look deeper and learn about Alphonse as a person. She even believed that it was fate that they be together the very day she first saw him, up until cruel reality hit for her when Alphonse chose to marry Chloé.
• Jerkass Realization: Prior to Hajeong becoming Chloé, the original Chloé had a crush on Arthur and tried to confess to him, which he callously rejected and only made Chloé look even worse in the public eye. After becoming drawn to the new Chloé and his final attempt to "win" her affections back resulting in him being indefinitely exiled, Arthur recognizes how callous his actions were, not only for trying to slander her involving her commoner tea business but also for how he treated Chloé (the original one) by allowing her to become a laughingstock in society from her attempted confession.
• Marriage of Convenience: The marriage of Alphonse and the original Chloé was based on a contract that would serve them both. Alphonse needed a wife who would not distract him with trivial emotions like "love," and to provide an heir for his family's wealth and title — Chloé was a perfect match because was a shy, biddable girl from a poorer, less powerful noble house. Chloé needed a husband to provide her with social standing and financial security — Alphonse's offer was practically a godsend after she was embarrassed by the Prince. It's later revealed that Chloé's parents always intended to "sell her off" to whatever suitor would be most politically advantageous.
• Never My Fault: Arthur grows resentful and jealous of Alphonse and Chloé when his father clearly trusts them with matters more than him to point he attempts to slander Chloé. Throughout all this, he fails to recognize how his own behavior prior, which included constantly skipping out on his responsibilities as the only heir to be a playboy on top of causing an uproar at his father's birthday banquet by challenging Alphonse to a duel only months ago, contributed to this happening. It's only after his father puts him on indefinite exile abroad that he begins to realize his situation is one of his own making.
• New Year Has Come: In chapter 83, Chloé and Alphonse celebrate New Years — 1766, to be precise.
• Nice to the Waiter: Even before she regains her social status among the nobility, Chloé goes out of her way to show kindness to the manor's servants to the point they have nothing but praises for her. One chapter even has Chloé help one of her servants win over her in-laws by teaching her tea cocktail recipes.
• Oh, Crap!: Colleen's reaction during an important party when, after a failed attempt to ruin Chloé by having her dressed in outdated clothes identical to Alphonse's ex (which is foiled thanks to Lady Fortnum helping Chloé find more appropriate clothes), she realizes by Chloé staring RIGHT AT HER with a look of disgust, that she's been found out and tries to flee. Unfortunately for her, Alphonse's knights catch and lock her up to be dealt with after the party. Colleen has another one when after a pathetic attempt to beg for her life by saying that Chloé would surely forgive her, Alphonse himself tells her that it was Chloé who gave full permission for him to punish Colleen as he sees fit. Cue Colleen getting 300 lashings and a death sentence by hanging for her crimes.
• Of Corset Hurts: At the beginning of the story, Chloé's everyday wardrobe includes rather tight corsetry (even if she's not planning on leaving the house or dressing up for an event). In later chapters she mentions her corset is so tight that she can't really eat her fill at a fancy dinner party she and Alphonse have been invited too. She gets so fed up with the fashion that she starts a trend among noble ladies of "loosening" corsets when taking afternoon tea in the company of other women, and the narration points out that this lead to the eventual abandonment of corsets as a support garment.
• Parental Substitute: Alphonse has one in the form of his distant relative Ms. Mason who took care of Alphonse after his father's death and deprogrammed most of the behavior the previous Duke had instilled into Alphonse. They're on good enough terms that she willingly hugs him (and Chloé after becoming acquainted with her) at the end of her visit and he himself speaks well of her when discussing her visit with Chloé.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Arthur's father, the Emperor, is a pretty cool guy. He doesn't devalue Chloé's worth because of her being a woman, is happy to give justifiable credit when it is earned, truly cares for the health and welfare of his people and wants to keep diplomacy between his empire and other countries high and well. He is also willing to listen to all sides and doesn't take any immediately until all have presented their cases, but also doesn't allow anyone to try and utilize their own authority as an excuse for why they're right. This extends to his own son Arthur, where after Arthur continuously tries to bring down Alphonse's house out of spite for his successes as well as anger at Chloé for not falling for him, the Emperor exiles his son for an indefinite amount of time to go across the sea to the east to learn from them. Now he is fair to Arthur, telling him to reflect on his actions and that he can come home when he has learned well, though part of this is also because he genuinely loves Arthur and wants him to do well, especially because Arthur is his only son, but nonetheless, he does imply that Arthur must prove he has learned his lesson before he can come home.
• Reincarnate in Another World: Modern day office worker Park Hajeong drinks herself into an unconscious stupor after being fired from her high-stress job, only to wake up in the body of Duchess Chloé Battenberg in a setting that resembles 19th century Europe. However, Hajeong discovers later she didn't actually die and had actually swapped bodies with Chloé, who assumed Hajeong's identity back on modern day Earth.
• Running Gag: Whenever Chloe and Alphonse spend the night together, Chloe ends up with a compress on her back the next day.
• Secret-Keeper: After more than 100 chapters, Hajeong confesses to Alphonse that she is from another world and took over the body of the original Chloé. The two visit a priest that allows Hajeong to talk to the original Chloé, who had taken over Hajeong's body. The original Chloé and Hajeong-in-Chloé's-Body part on good terms and wish each other good luck in their new lives. This does not change Alphonse's feelings for Hajeong-in-Chloé's body.
• Riches to Rags: Colleen, Chloé's head maid. She was once the daughter of a noble family who bullied Chloé when they were younger due to the latter's timid nature making her an easy target (which also helped to deflect attention from Colleen's family's failing fortunes, ensuring the other noble children didn't turn their cruelty against Colleen). Once her family lost all their money, Colleen was forced to work as a maid in Chloé's household.
• Stealth Pun: Chloé's parents are the Count and Countess Gray, who preside over the Earldom of Gray. Since "Count" is an equivalent rank to an "Earl", and "Lady" is a title that can refer to many ranks of noble women, that would make them "Earl Gray" and "Lady Gray."
• Sweet Tooth: Ms. Mason, Alphonse's guardian. When she comes to visit, she brings with her a large jar of peppermint candies. This gives Chloé the idea to brew cold mint tea for Ms. Mason and gain her approval.
• Tea Is Classy: Inverted At the beginning of the story. Hajeong finds that the nobility of Chloé's world disdain tea as a bitter beverage only drunk by "barbarians" in far-off realms. None of her peers know how to prepare it properly, and even if they did they wouldn't want to drink it. Wine and coffee are the only drinks suitable for the upper classes (and commoners generally can't afford to buy it from the far east). It takes hard work on Hajeong/Chloé's part to overturn the stigma against her favorite beverage and turn it into a desirable product.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Alphonse. He and Chloé become closer once they start having more to talk about such as business and he was extremely worried when she fainted due to overwork. This gets cemented as a full Heel–Face Turn from his previous personality when he finds out about Chloé's past abuse at the hands of her parents, realizing that Chloé had no one to support or help her growing up while he at least had his guardian Ms. Mason following the death of his own abusive father.
• Trapped in Another World: Single, overworked accountant Park Hajeong wakes up in the body of Duchess Chloé Battenberg, a married woman living the life of a sheltered aristocrat in another world. It's later revealed she's not the only one this has happened to as a man from Hajeong's world woke up in the body of William Riverwood and became a priest to investigate the phenomenon. This is also a reversal case for the original Chloé, who ended up in Hajeong's body in the modern world.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Practically every chapter sees Chloé wearing a new Gorgeous Period Dress (more accurately Hollywood Costuming) outfit, and it seems she almost never wears the same outfit twice. It makes sense in-universe since Chloé is the wife of a wealthy Duke, so buying new gorgeous gowns isn't a financial problem. That's not to say that she doesn't seem to have a favorite, as she does wear light green dresses quite often, specifically one particular spring green gown with lots of bows, white and pastel yellow accents and little white gloves (aka the dress she wears in the promo image), which she seems to favor the most, especially during the earlier chapters, which also makes occasional appearances in flashbacks and in person later down the line.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Ariana is caught and arrested for trying to sabotage Chloé's tea store, she rants to Alphonse that she loves him and he shouldn't do this to her, as Chloé is in her eyes undeserving of his affections. Once he coldly and bluntly tells her he'll never love her, not even in another life, she breaks down crying, pathetically begging him not to go.
• What Happened to the Mouse??: One of Chloé's more notable rivals from the earlier chapters, a purple haired noble lady named Lady Belladonna, was quite an arrogant woman. She was dead set against Chloé introducing tea when Chloé held her first tea party, herself being a hardcore coffee drinker and having had a bad one-off experience with improperly prepared tea herself, but while Chloé is able to win over her other former tormentors with properly prepared tea, not only does Lady Belladonna never get won over, but once Chloé has made enough progress that the nobility have taken positive notice of her change, Lady Belladonna straight up disappears. She isn't referenced again save by her father, who ironically is a coffee maker and even wants to do business with Chloé and her teas, claiming his daughter has since come around and become a tea fanatic herself, which doesn't seem very believable given all of Belladonna's past anti-tea remarks, so it was more likely that he was using that as an excuse to get Chloé to do business, which even Chloé believes is more likely.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Or in Chloé's case, "when all you have is tea." Chloé uses a liberal application of her love for tea to solve all the problems that her new world throws at her:
  • Can't make friends? Brew some tea and share it with your acquaintances and staff.
  • Cold, emotionally distant husband? Brew him a warm cup of tea to show you care.
  • Need to earn the approval of the woman who raised your husband? Make some cold mint tea to help refresh her on the hot day she arrives as well as appeal to her love of sweets.
  • Social standing damaged by the flaky, timid attitude of the previous inhabitant of your body? Open a business selling tea and tea-infused products, promote it with 21st century advertising practices, and make your product the hottest commodity on the block.
  • Your servant is having trouble getting along with her in-laws? Teach her some tea cocktail recipes to win them over.
  • Villagers in your territory getting sick with scurvy? Brew them tea that's packed with vitamin C and "invent" the cure, which also generates a new source of revenue for that otherwise impoverished territory as they harvest the ingredients for your curative tea.
  • International relations with the East in a delicate place? Show your mastery at brewing their specialty tea to prove your kingdom's commitment to strengthening cultural and economic ties between your two countries.
  • The Empire is suffering from commoners drinking too much gin? Make your trendy, caffeinated tea easily made and affordable for them to drink instead.
• Yandere: A downplayed example as Ariana doesn't want to kill Chloé, just ruin her, but she still counts. Ariana is deeply obsessed with Alphonse, having fallen in love with him at first sight. She loathes Chloé for being the one to ultimately marry him, even ignoring the fact that Alphonse was the one who chose her himself. Her hatred of Chloé boils over to the point of throwing tantrums at the mere mention of her name (ostracizing Ariana from her former friends who have come to respect Chloé sincerely) and Ariana decides to try destroy Chloé in an effort to ruin her in the public's eyes and hopefully Alphonse's eyes as well. It should be noted that Ariana appears to only in love with the physical "flawless" image of Alphonse, i.e. his good looks and wealth, not the flawed and still hurt man under the title that Chloé knows. Where Chloé's love for him had to develop slowly yet is selfless, true and accepting of him despite his past, Ariana's is more akin to a longstanding crush at first sight that she doesn't see any deeper than his looks and her wishing that she "owns" his affections, like he is a trophy husband not a person and that his heart is an object to be owned, a prize she believes she deserves to win.

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