In the Cit-tea by Caroline Keosaksith
Cat from KitTea
dedication to all cat lovers, tea drinkers, friends, and family.
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Cat Lounge at KitTea
table of contents preface
page 6-7
introduction
page 8-9
i.
page 10-13
ii.
page 14-19
iii.
page 20-25
conclusion
page 26-27
works cited
page 28-29
Cats playing at KitTea
preface When I had decided to work with my film partner, Gabriela, she had chosen a business I had never heard of-KitTea. From what I had briefly learned, it was a cafe where people drank tea and played with cats, and that intrigued me. I was really excited to visit this place, learn more about it, and, of course, play with cats! Before I started working on this project, the main concern I had was that it was located in San Francisco-getting there would be difficult, and we would have to go multiple times. Little did I know that transportation was going to be a lesser concern. The biggest challenge Gabriela and I faced during this work was finding times for interviews at KitTea. With school, we couldn’t go during the day, and on weekends, the place was loaded with people, and our interviewee wouldn’t work that day. Through all of this, I learned that communication is key with everyone I work with, in order to prevent miscommunications, and simply get things done. In the end, I was able to work through all the bumps in the road and create a hard-earned book and film about this unique cafe.
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Cats playing at KitTea
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introduction
itting inside a room full of cats and people, with a window opening up to a sidewalk, I couldn’t help but notice that almost everyone who walked by turned their head or stopped to take a photo. I sat in one of the three sections of the building called the cat lounge. Cats roamed around me and 11 other people as we drank bottomless green tea. The entrance to the lounge I sat
in laid in a tiny gift shop. There were cat-themed socks, pens, tea mugs, and much more in pastel colors. Two ladies stood at a register, checking in people who had reserved their time with the cats. Another entrance led to a petite eating area with a couple of small tables surrounded with woven seats. There is a bar with stools facing the cat play area. The whole place is pretty crowded, with a few,
but enough customers, to fill the place,-but you can’t find any cat hair in there. Being in the whole place was the perfect setting to relax and de-stress, which is what the whole business aims for. KitTea is a unique business that works towards supporting and fostering homeless kittens, while also benefitting people by providing a Zen place for them to relax.
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i.
creation
teapots and cups displayed at KitTea
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itTea Cafe was founded in 2013 by Courtney Hatt, but the business officially opened in 2015. Bringing together both the aspects of a normal cafe and a play area full of cats, KitTea is “a unique cafe experience dedicated
to be dealt with, including “new territory for the health department” (Hatt), finding the perfect location for the unique business, and construction of the building itself. Some questions and challenges included, “...how and where do we put this, [and] where we can
and that’s air filtration. So...we have to have two systems: one in the cat lounge, one in the tea lounge, so we could do food and cats safely.” This was a very important requirement; if both sections of KitTea had shared one air system, cat hair would be blowing onto customers’ freshly
“A unique cafe experience dedicated to enriching the interactions between humans and felines in a relaxing environment.” to enriching the interactions between humans and felines in a relaxing environment” (KitTea) through the art of sipping Japanese green tea, petting, and playing with with various cats. As the first cat cafe in the United States, there was a lot of management that had
get away with having live animals in a cafe setting?” (Hatt). To serve the interest of the cats in the cafe, the building was built with floor to ceiling windows in a separate room called the cat lounge. Hatt also explained how the structure was installed with “H-vac systems...
made waffles. Through these two years of development, the first cat cafe of the United States was opened to the public, and is a very popular site for tourists and even residents of San Francisco.
Cat from KitTea
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Left; KitTea logo on outside window Center; Tea menu Right; Scone served at KitTea
ii.
relaxation
Japanese tea served at KitTea
Milk Tea served at KitTea
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ith so much work being put into the development and creation of KitTea Café, it had finally become a business that brings together the relaxation of playing with cats while savoring tea. Both of these factors of the cafe can help benefit humans. This aim for a relaxing place did not come from nowhere, though. Hatt explained her inspiration: “...I dealt with having, you know, personal anxiety, and wanted to create a very tranquil, Zen, space for both people and cats.” This goal of creating a place of rest for customers
who come seemed to be effective. Bianca Mendez, a resident in San Francisco who visited KitTea for the first time admitted, “you’re always in a hurry. Especially here in the city, you’re always getting from point A to point B.” A lot of the customers who come to visit KitTea live near San Francisco, which includes college students from USF, SFSU, or more, such as Mendez. With loads of projects, assignments, and essays, students often endure lots of stress and barely ever have a place to just sit and not have to worry about work that must be done or anything
else. KitTea is able to provide a place of relaxation, and as Hatt described, “We just wanted people to have...a nice, blank space to feel happy in, rather than busy.” One of the ways KitTea is so unique and is able to benefit humans is because of the cats. For one, they really just act as emotional support. One story Courtney shared described one woman who “was crying. I don’t know why. She was really upset when she first entered the space. We got her into the cat lounge, she came out, and she was laughing... She was extremely elated,
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Cat from KitTea
so I think that cats have that effect, they really do. They’re non-judgemental, and they’ll give you love” (Hatt). Mendez, after her session in the cat lounge, admitted how the whole place is “really nice because just seeing cats sleeping everywhere makes you a bit tired, and so it just relaxes you.” Not only can cats bring happiness from accompanying them, there are studies that show that they can also physically benefit humans. As mentioned with the relaxation aspect of KitTea, the cats play a big part in that. According to Health Fitness Revolution, “Owning a cat
can be soothing and trigger calming chemicals in the body, decreasing stress and anxiety levels” (Health Fitness Revolution). One study even proved that a certain frequency helps heal bones and muscles, which happens to include the frequency of a cat’s purr (Klyscz). Although going to KitTea is not the same as owning a cat, it allows people to still spend time with kittens who may not be able to, due to housing restrictions, allergies, or finances. Of course, tea is an important factor of KitTea as well. During the one-hour visit in the cat lounge,
customers receive bottomless, high-quality green tea, straight from Kyoto, Japan. The tea isn’t served just for its good taste. One study conducted by the University College London found that tea can “have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal” (Hall). Another study proved that tea can help “reduce the risk of various types of cancers in humans” (Khan), including breast, skin, and prostate cancer. From purring cats to drinking quality tea, KitTea benefits customers with a peaceful experience.
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Cat from KitTea
iii.
adoption
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umans aren’t the only ones benefitting from this San Franciscan attraction. The cats at this cafe come from main Animal Care and
Top left; Cat from Palo Alto Animal Shelter Bottom left; Cage at the animal shelter Bottom Right; Cat profile
these cats; rather, it is a foster home for them. In other words, the cafe is a temporary home for them until they get adopted. KitTea also has cats that they adopted, so-called
While KitTea attracts customers who want to play with cats and enjoy some sips of tea, their stay really encourages the idea of cat adoption. Hatt explained
“Often our adoptors aren’t looking to adopt.” Control shelters, along with Wonder Cat Rescue or Tony’s Kitty Rescue, which are smaller rescues from San Francisco. One misunderstanding is that KitTea is not a shelter for
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residential cats. These cats are always at the cafe, and KitTea is their permanent home. With both the adoptable and residential kittens, the cat lounge can hold up to twenty cats.
how people who come into the cafe “might not even be looking to adopt. Often our adopters aren’t looking to adopt. They just fall in love with a cat, and that’s that.”
Cages at the Palo Alto Animal Services shelter
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This really benefits these homeless kittens because it gives them a better chance of finding a home, than at a shelter. According to the ASPCA, roughly 860,000 cats per year are
they can’t keep as many cats as they bring in” (Hwangbo). For KitTea, when a shelter experiences this overflow of homeless cats, they are used as an alternate place to take
Sachi Hwangbo, who works at the Palo Alto Animal Services shelter, also admitted that, “...a [cat] cafe is a nice solution, or it could be just a way to meet animals that need homes,
euthanized (put to death) from shelters, because “Some of the shelters don’t have room, and they do have to make those euthanasia decisions and
care of these animals. Having foster homes such as KitTea is great, which contributes to the decrease in the amount of euthanized cats per year.
and it’s a little more casual than coming to a shelter, you know, signing in… or going through cages and cages of animals.”
“A cafe is a nice solution, or it could be just a way to meet animals that need homes...”
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conclusion
“At the moment, this is our one and only location. We would love to open another location to help more cats� (Hatt). With KitTea being such a successful and popular location, there is definitely a possibility that people will be finding more KitTeas around the city. This will allow more spaces for kittens without a home, as well as adoptions for them. But even now, as a small, unique cafe, KitTea brings peace and relaxation to all its patrons while contributing to the decreasing amount of euthanasia by helping and providing these cats homes.
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works cited Hall, Celia. “Tea Soothes a Troubled Mind, Say Scientists.” The Telegraph. 9 Oct. 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3343868/Tea- soothes-a-troubled-mind-say-scientists.html. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017. Hatt, Courtney. Personal interview. 16 Mar. 2017. Health Fitness Revolution. “Top 10 Health Benefits of Owning a Cat.” Health Fitness Revolution. 24 Apr. 2015, http://www.healthfitnessrevolution.com/ top-10-health-benefits-owning-cat/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017. Hwangbo, Sachi. Personal interview. 25 Mar. 2017. Khan, Nhagma. “Tea and Health: Studies in Humans.” NCBI. https://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4055352/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2017 Klyscz, T. “Biomechanical Stimulation Therapy as Physical Treatment of Arthrogenic Venous Insufficiency.” NCBI. May 1997, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/9303905. Accessed 20 Apr. 2017. Mendez, Bianca. Personal interview. 29 Mar. 2017. “Pet Statistics.” ASPCA. https://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake- and-surrender/pet-statistics. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017.
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about the author
Caroline Keosaksith is a junior at Mountain View High School and Freestyle Academy, with an interest in studying film. She is very passionate about music, as well as art-including photography and doodling. Although her entire family is allergic to cats, she still loves them, and hopes to foster or adopt kittens in the future. 31