Health – TEA in the Bay Area

What’s in a tea? Folks in the Bay Area seem to know as the trend of tea drinking continues to grow. But does tea really stops you from getting sick?

I explored several tea houses in the Bay Area and interviewed experts to find out.

***TRY WATCHING IT IN HIGH QUALITY (Play the video, then on the lower right corner of the youtube video box, there’s an arrow pointing upwards. Just click on that and click on “HQ”, meaning high quality***

This version is my cut. A televised version will be coming up soon. The tv station (also a web company), http://www.vjiam.tv, declined to air some of my interviews because of lack of release forms. I didn’t know that all my subjects had to sign one, especially because I never had to do that before.  SO because I’d hate to take out some of my good shots and interviews, I went ahead and made my own cut! Please feel free to compare the two versions once the second one comes out.

Anyway, on top of the release forms, my producer also needed me to answer a questionnaire. At first I thought it was another chore I had to do, but I felt good after completing the form.  So here it is:

1. What did you like best about shooting your segment?
Best tea on the house. j/k, not really.
Going and learning about the tea scene in the Bay Area.  I thought I was a tea expert until I found out there there’s actually so much more than just a tea bag and a microwave.  The clinic at Medicine Buddha in SF was pretty cool.  It was definitely not your typical waiting room and clinic.  The tea bar at Teance tea shop was also pretty cool, and best of all, I get to have their best tea for free when I went to see these places!

2. What were some of the challenges with shooting your segment?
Aside from release forms? 🙂

I thought tea would be easy to talk about until I learned that there’s so much more to it that it was hard to cover everything and still make it sound “hip and cool” to our viewers.

Also, Getting people’s trust for an interview.  As it turns out, because tea is such an underdog here in the US, tea aficionados are sensitive talking about tea.  They think that tea are not getting the right reputation it deserves, and for a lot of tea folks, they take their tea very seriously. But in the end, after a tea cup or two,it was all good.

3. What, if anything, happened during your segment that was unusual or funny?
I didnt get any footage of this, I dont think you would want to mention it on air anyway…but, I stepped on the biggest most giant poop I’ve ever seen, it was when I was on my way to Mediccine Buddha.  The clinic was located in the not so affluent side of SF so I was making sure that my car was all locked up and I lost sight of the poop right by me.  Good thing, there were some good folks who helped hosed it off my shoe.  Looking back, i thought it was pretty funny.