Do you have a favorite drink to soothe your throat during a voice session?
During voice over sesssions I usually like Oolong or Darjeeling tea. Found some insightful info about tea usage during voiceovers that I wanted to pass along to you…The information came from a nationally certified (USA & CANADA) Speech-Language Pathologist, in a private practice working with kids and adults, diagnosing and providing therapy or coaching for speech, accent/dialect modification and voice disorders/issues. Pretty interesting stuff…
Black tea, and most caffeine containing products (colas, drinks and other stuff like caffeine pills, gum, lip gloss …yeccchhh) do have a diuretic effect…as long as you counter this with water you should be ok. I suspect that the black tea you tried, Lynn, was probably pretty high in tannins (which are in all black teas, and have an astringent effect on the mouth tissues) and acidity. Now if you drank that with a shot of milk, you have the dairy effect to deal with too. If you are prone to acid reflux there’s that to factor in as well.
Don’t forget, also, that studios can have a really dry atmosphere…and did you drink enough water in advance of your studio time? To be honest, the diuretic effect of tea wouldnt really hit you until a little later (maybe 20-30 minutes), when it’s had a chance to be absorbed and get to the kidneys, etc. You wouldnt notice mouth dryness right away due to the caffeine’s diuretic qualities…my bet in your case, is on the high tannins and acidity.
I think there’s probably no harm in most teas, as long as (a) you choose good quality, not el cheapo twigs and tealeaf dust, and (b) dont let it steep too long – keep it weak to medium strength.
Everyone loves honey, but remember everything we swallow does not physically touch our vocal cords (they’re in a different tube) except when it goes down the wrong way…so we are really responding to the steaminess, nice cozy feeling and the warmth of the drink, and the yummy taste, but honey doesn’t really coat the vocal cords in anything. Just being picky here. BTW to my knowledge, green tea can contain a lot of caffeine too. It does come off the same family of plants, as far as I know.
