Worst Artisan Goods In Stardew Valley, Ranked

Highlights

• Focusing on crafting Artisan Goods in
  Stardew Valley
  can make players rich quickly.
• Some goods, like Oil and Oak Resin, are better used for crafting than selling for profit.
• Green Tea can provide useful buffs but requires a time-intensive process to brew.

As Farmers progress through building their homestead and village relationships in Stardew Valley, they gain increasing opportunities to craft different kinds of goods. Whether giving them to NPCs, selling them for profit, or using them to build other things, it’s impossible to deny that some are more useful than others.

Sometimes highlighted by veteran players as being the most profitable route through the game (some say too easily profitable), a Farmer focusing on Artisan Goods can quickly build their farm into a gold-producing machine. However, if they put their efforts into the ones ranked below, they may be better off turning their focus elsewhere.

There are no spoilers for the 1.6 update in this article.

9 Oil

A Slippery Start

Kicking things off at the low, low selling price of 100g, Oil is an Artisan Good that players are better off keeping in their fridge to make energy-increasing food items than selling it for cash. The necessary Oil Maker becomes available at Farming Level 8, which means most Farmers have long become used to giving their money to Pierre for the ingredient.

If players do choose to craft basic Oil for themselves, they’ll need to put Corn, Sunflower Seeds, or Sunflower into the Oil Maker and wait (varying times, from one in-game hour to overnight) in order to collect the goods.

8 Oak Resin

Tapping Trouble

Although classed as an Artisan Good in-game, Oak Resin (and its other syrupy cousins) doesn’t benefit from the buffs given by the Artisan profession. Instead, it receives its buffs from the Tapper profession… which does, admittedly, make it worth 25% more than its base price of 150g.

Still, does that really make it worth selling when it takes 7-8 days to retrieve it from a tapped tree? With Oak Resin being a major ingredient in crafting Deluxe Speed-Gro fertilizer and the all artisan-essential Keg, it’s best to leave this out of the Shipping Bin and hang onto it for more gold down the line.

7 Green Tea

Great Green Goodness?

With stackable Max Energy and Speed buffs, Green Tea can be a useful food for players who want to zip around on their Stardew Valley quests with some pep in their step. However, the process of being able to brew it for themselves is very time-intensive.

The easiest way to acquire the recipe for a Sapling and subsequently be able to brew its leaves is to befriend Caroline… leaving the Farmer with a product which sells for 100g and is only a Loved Gift for two villagers (Caroline and Lewis).

6 Pine Tar

Tapping Trouble Take Two

Like Oak Resin, Pine Tar has a low selling price (100g base, 125g with the Tapper profession), which makes it more valuable to keep for crafting rather than sell in the shipping bin. Lewis won’t have to lug the heavy bottles back to town on his collection runs, at least.

Used for crafting the Loom (which allows players to spin Wool into Cloth), Speed-Gro fertilizer, and the Rain Totem, veteran players often stock up as early as possible in-game. For those ambitious to marry as soon as possible, the Rain Totem is the only way to purchase a Mermaid’s Pendant in Winter… giving this good a potentially romantic twist.

5 Jelly

Wibbly Wobbly Waste

Once players get access to the Preserves Jar (fairly early on at Farming Level 4), they gain the ability to start pumping out all manner of jellies and jams. However, using these to maximize profit and Gifting potential is notoriously tricky.

Jelly can be made from any Fruit, and there’s a set formula to determine its sell price (2 x base Fruit price + 50g), but without an encyclopedic knowledge of those base prices, Farmers often have to wait the 2-3 day processing time to find out how much cash they’ve made.

4 Aged Roe

Fresh Or Fishy?

One of the things that makes Stardew Valley so fun for many veteran players is the sheer variety of goods it’s possible to create on their little mountain homestead. While some may enjoy Aged Roe for this, others may find the means of getting it too troublesome.

The labor-intensive process (which includes providing the materials and paying for a Fish Pond to be built, filling that pond with Fish, bringing them tributes, and then aging the collected Roe) is complicated by the fact each Fish gives a different variety of Roe. These up their value once placed in the Preserves jar, but prices vary. For sheer consistency of profit, money-minded players would be better off raising Sturgeon to give them expensive Caviar (500-700g) to sell on.

3 Cloth

Crafting Clothes

Cloth is a tricky one when analyzing the various pros and cons of Artisan Goods. On one hand, it has a higher selling point than many others once players have it (470g), but on the other, getting it takes a lot of time, labor, and farm upgrades.

While some players really value Cloth because they enjoy the opportunity to craft custom outfits for their Farmer (with the help of Emily’s sewing machine), others find the mechanism can clog up storage space and become annoyed that the clothes themselves can’t be sold. As a Gift, it’s also Hated by more characters (Jas, Sebastian, Vincent) than it is loved (Emily).

2 Pickles

Precariously Priced Preserves

Much like Jelly, the profit involved in producing pickles depends on the basic Vegetable used to create the jar of preserves. Ginger can also be used, which makes things a bit more interesting but doesn’t offer a particularly profitable option despite literally spicing up the result.

Pickles are also a worse Gifting option than their sweet cousin. Although nobody loves Jelly, it’s a Liked Gift for almost every character in the game. Compare that to the many characters who dislike or even hate Pickles, and players will have to weigh up if it being one of Harvey’s number one Gifts is worth the hassle.

1 Void Mayonnaise

Drifting Into The Dark

Taking the number one spot as a polarizing Artisan Good is Void Mayonnaise, a dark, red-flecked condiment made by processing an egg from a Void Chicken. While the jarred substance has a wider variety of uses than some other Artisan Goods (being needed to complete a quest and involved in a recipe rather than simply focused on profit), it’s also one of the most Hated Gifts in the game.

All NPCs – even witchy Abigail, the Wizard, and goth-lite Sebastian – hate the stuff with a passion and will react with disgust when presented with it by a hopeful Farmer. The one bright spot is that Void Mayonnaise is one of Krobus’s Loved Gifts… although an unprocessed Void Egg can achieve the same results for much less effort.