Nice bit of recognition for the leaf as this coming May 21st has been officially designated as International Tea Day…though for many of us, we could simply call most days “International Tea Time”. If interested, please join in some leaf-fuelled chat on May 21st (International Tea Day) on Youtube live at 17:30 EST. I’ll be sipping and chatting all things Puerh. It is part of an all-day streaming event honouring tea and its people from around the world. This ‘Sofa Summit’ will

Within one of the many nomadic encampments where Michael and I shared tea, warmth, and tales. Will be chatting all things mountains, trade routes, yak wool…and tea, with friend and longtime expedition partner (and founder of Kora) Michael Kleinwort this coming Wednesday April 15th here: https://www.facebook.com/koraoutdoor/ at 16:00 PST. The chat will be live, and tea fuelled (at least on my side) with a live question feed worked in. Michael and I somewhere in Spiti (the ‘Mid

So many sips and times of tea that have made their way into me have been enhanced while sitting in the surrounds and spaces in which the tea actually grows. In the words of mentor and extraordinary pan fryer of leaves, Mr. Gao, “You see leaves at the source and the sips you take will not be the same”. Mr. Gao’s presence never hurt either. Of the Hani people, his home in Lao Banzhang in southwestern Yunnan is one of the epicentres of Puerh. The gentle man of tea and wisdom, Mr

Sonam moves up singing, chatting, all the while moving through his Tibetan Mala beads. Mingmar dances from stone outcroppings to thatches of stems and back. Always he is looking for medicine, herbs, or simply that which matters to him – and when outdoors, there is much that matters to our energetic Mingmar. He carries an extra back pack for juniper that he will collect, which will in turn be dried and used as incense. Above all of us is the land where ice, stone, winds, and t

Langtang, the land called “Ox’s land” is grassland valley and ‘was’ a village…one that has been destroyed, reset eastward and rebuilt (if such a thing is possible). It lives again not far from a swath of rubble, stone, and line strokes that descend from the north. An avalanche obliterated the village with inhabitants, travellers, and animals alike being wiped out. The ‘new’ Langtang sits just east and higher than the swath of stone that covers what once was. Crossing the rubb

Perceptions are everything and here there is so very much within sensing distance. Syabrubesi is a dusty gateway that lies behind us. We head west through green tree lines of pine, birch, and rhododendron and nettles. The Buddhist sage and one of most provocative characters in Himalayan lore, Milarepa, is said to have gone entirely green during his meditations on a diet exclusively made up of nettles. That brilliant Tibetan yogi known for achieving an enlightened state in one

Timely cover feature in Outpost magazine as I head back up and into Nepal’s Himalayas and their tales and characters, their struggles, and stunning bits of magic. The shepherd I’m chatting with on the cover, spoke more clearly about the “changing weather” question, with less of an agenda, and more common sense than most mortals with a shirt on that I’ve encountered within the urban worlds. I’ve long wondered when it is that we will actively encourage and invite these characte

A flow westward out of one of the most precision oriented cultures of the leaf to a tiny corner (and an old home of mine) in southwestern China, where the leaf is still at times an imprecise thing of random beauty. Japan gives way to Yunnan. Teas with a time and a moment give way to teas with an unpredictable possibility of brilliance. A last blast of Gyokuro and its Umami before the flight west Those taints of Umami still rolling around like a veritable memory within and upo

The first concept that is immediately put on the shelf about a teahouse here in Japan is that there will be no fun. The second concept is that there must be a kind of rigid adherence to structure and form. Clean light and simple lines introduce a space of few needs. The teahouse reigns. Sitting with the buzz of energy that is the Sensei of this teahouse, a serving of Sake is offered with a long story of how it was made, by whom, and why it is important that it come before tea

Some sage and simple wisdom as always from those who spend time at the source, at the cup, and in the tea houses. Travel through some of Japan’s tea zones has been an immersion into more informality than expected. Always instructive are the farmers themselves or those who spend heaps of time within the gardens. They speak more truths about tea in a shorter period than any sales guru I’ve ever met. In a field of leaves that will become Sencha in Mie Prefecture. Expected was a

One of the most impactful concepts and terms last year was the word ‘Ayni’. Used in the Andean world by many of its peoples, it was a concept embraced by the Inca people. That city of so much ‘zing’, history, and altitude, Cusco – and our base of operations while we were in Peru Link here for Teasers One of the elders in Chawaytiri who still spins wool and remembers the vitality of collaboration with the natural elements During our journey to Peru our entire film team became

Tea fuelled, I’ll be returning to one my favourite haunts – and of the most intense and provocative spaces anywhere – collaborating with Exodus Travel and the Royal Canadian Geographic Society for a journey into northern India to immerse in it all. Rituals, tea, intensity, ferocious colour…and more tea. Collaboration with Exodus Travels, the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, and myself gets into as much of the raging life in India’s north as we can. The pageantry, the chaos,

Returns insist upon some reflection and this return is no different. Half a month upon that  route of high along the eastern flank of Mustang, followed up by a half month of Solukhumbu and the wide spaces of Mustang seem simple to conjure. The reassuring view of our mule caravan (and all that it carries) Mustang’s fate seems to shift all over the orbit but whatever shall be, there is much change in the dust of this formerly independent kingdom. Money comes in to construct (an

There are few other gateway spaces that lead to zones of majesty, silence and winds, that are themselves such chaotic charmers, as Kathmandu. It remains fuzzy with dust and pollution, it remains a steaming hub of humanity at every level, and it thankfully retains – for better or worse – a place that is instantly recognizable. The full spectrum of senses are engaged and sometimes forced wide open to acknowledge. That bit of wonderment – the Boudanath Stupa, in amidst so much e

When, a few years ago, I left northwestern Yunnan to join my wife Julie and live here in Hawaii, there were concerns that I’d somehow be removed from what had been my base close to mountains and tea and of the wonderful effects that the two elements. A concern that a decade of unrivalled access to thin-aired wonder and culture, and that stimulant leaf that gives so much to each day, would be dimmed. Hawaii, and specifically Big Island, has its own narcotic charms with the tra

The Llama’s ass, tea leaves, and a mountain where the Royal Incas came for guidance from the still-reverent spirit world. Our last installment (here) of the ‘In from the Outpost’ (on tea’ journeys through the Andean world. Pariaqaqa, a mountain that bowed all mortals in reverence features. A team full of passion for the skies, for the stories and for the leaves is to be thanked. The journey transverses so much more than simple national  borders and demarcations. It is a fluid

“The tea caravans would come from the north and they would come in Spring and even winter. The Khampas who accompanied the caravans could frighten and impress us. They were unpredictable and without fear. Their journeys made them indestructible”. Words during an interview near the Bhutan-Tibet border with an elder who served our team a variation of butter tea. He was speaking of the Khampa (‘people of the east’ of the Tibetan lands) who inspired this reverence and fear throug

A little moment of respite for our incredible hostess who remains still, one of most formidable characters in my memory palace. While running around researching the Tea Horse Road, a friend who was from the Yi minority invited me to meet his grandmother, who had lucid memories of the old trade route. As much as the time with her was about tea and the route itself – which steamed through her region near Xiaguan, Yunnan, – she herself became a kind of all-encompassing subject o

Second Part of our recent ramblings through Peru and the Andean world, with a visit to the village of Chawaytiri here. After demolishing a half bag of coca, it was my turn to serve tea to the elders of Chawaytiri. Luciano, the headman took a tea cake and promptly portioned out chunks equally to the families. More sips of tea, more coca offers, still more coca…before an offering of a tea cake to the elders, which was promptly portioned out. And of course, our epic team continu

Abu is chatty. Not prone to overly long sessions of speaking, Abu, when he is talking, usually has something to expel and it is always a treat watching it begin to emerge. Weeks in and heading west out of old Samzong to Lo Manthang, with our caravan of two and four-legged ones spread along a weaving line, Abu is going on how “the valleys need to talk to one another and they need to share”. His energy is ‘up’ and his eyes glow with some sort of inner force of conviction, which