What's the difference?

News:Steeped in tradition (Christopher Allen)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/steeped-in-tradition/story-e6frg8n6-1225900475736

Description:
This news story is based on the Tea and Zen exhibition in National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in August. The story has covered several parts. Firstly, it introduces some history of tea and the relationship of coffee, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Zen. Secondly, it covers some information about the exhibition. Last, according to the Chinese and Japanese tea culture in the exhibition, the story clarifies the differences between these two kinds of tea cultures.

Comment:
Catalogued in Arts section, this story is soft news.
Rather than other news stories which follow the principle of “5W” at the beginning or in the middle, the author just uses three bullet points to explain the exhibition first:
    •Tea and Zen
     National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
     Until August 29
Then, it opens with the saying of the author of Chajing to lead to the theme and angle.
WE drink water to quench our thirst, according to Lu Yu, author of the Chinese classic Chajing, wine to banish melancholy and tea to clear the mind.
The writing is mainly about the relationship between human thoughts, the culture and beverage. It quickly uses the term reminds us in the third paragraph to write more than 17 paragraphs to introduce the history of tea next and accordingly relate to coffee, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Zen. In the 20th and 21st paragraph, with the words the relevance of tea, the story backs to the relevant information of the exhibition and introduces two different parts of it, Chinese and Japanese and the story is followed by the tea-making process and the differences of tea and Zen between the two cultures. With all of the information, the author uses compliments (more like similes and novel style) in the end to highlight the unique exhibition without using any words like the exhibition XXX.

It is a special writing piece, at least not familiar to me, with different sequences to write the story. It looks more like an additional introduction of tea knowledge and history (or feature story) than the real meaning of news story because it is hard to distinguish the news values or elements in it. However, it is good about the story angle, searching the deeper meaning of the relationsip between tea and human culture from an exhibition. Besides, the headline Steeped in tradition which goes straightly to the theme of the story: tea, Zen and the long history, is simple but covering all the content, and the beginning paragraph uses a very relevant and great old saying.