Leaf Journeys, Leaf Ageing, and the Heights
It was upon the months' long journeys along the Tea Horse Road that the big-leafed 'assamica' material and eternal panacea, tea, would...
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Jeff Fuchs
- Apr 27, 2021
- 1 min
A Pass, The 'Feel', and Karma's Chai
The mind wanders back to a pass, a blizzard, and that wonderful thing that exists still: instinct. On a day of few words along a portion...
Jeff Fuchs
- Mar 9, 2021
- 2 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Part Goat and a Little Part Human
Over the course of years since meeting Dorjè I’ve written and pondered much about him. “Part goat and a little part human” was how he was...
Jeff Fuchs
- Feb 21, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Chronicles - The Bend
It was here at the ‘first bend of the Yangtze’, at Shigu, in Yunnan province that the Mongolian armies of the Yuan Dynasty crossed the...
Jeff Fuchs
- Feb 11, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Other Tales and Sight
Not all stories of the Tea Horse Road were ones of grand expanses, snow caps, or buzzing tea sessions. A friend from the Yi minority...
Jeff Fuchs
- Feb 3, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Empress of Cloth
Ponzera, or Benzilan as it is now known, is a small valley town in northwestern Yunnan that lies alongside a headwater stream of the...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 28, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Way Out, and Out Again
Yeshi and I shared tea with this old memory palace of time. Goat milk and butter were used instead of yak variations. The tea was deadly...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 26, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - There Are No Straight Lines Through the Mountains
Not heeding the warnings of Sonam Gelek; I should have known better at this stage of our journey than to plunge onwards without his...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 23, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Chronicles - Blessings and Warnings
It was from this patch of grassland near Napa Lake, just north of my home in Dukezong (old town of 'Shangrila') that our expedition...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 14, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Chronicles - Tea's Value
“Tea is our everything. I don’t know where it comes from but we take it every day in the morning, afternoon, and night. Our children...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 7, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Chronicles - The Hostess, The Keeper
A nomadic hostess (nemo) offers up a smile to our sun and grime battered crew near Ala Jagung, Tibet. The smile that comes from living so...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 5, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Jokhang Boys
After 52 days of trekking from my then home in Zhongdian (aka: Shangrila/Jiantang/Gyalthang) in northwestern Yunnan, a small celebration...
Jeff Fuchs
- Jan 2, 2021
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - A Gathering of Women
Nomadic women of Ganze gather on a grassland to take part in a horse festival. It was through and over such high grasslands that the Tea...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 29, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - The Crossing
Poignant in this years' end and the arrival of a new time and space. A last vestige of travel across the glacier-fed waterways of the...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 28, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Chronicles - 'The Dorjè'
Immersed in a hotspring that is tucked within a mountain cave, sitting beside the venerable and irrepressible Dorjè Kandro. Just days...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 24, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - He Said, She Knew
This ‘moment’ was more accurately a series of moments and most of an afternoon, with an old muleteer and his wife. We interviewed the...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 23, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Tenzin
Legend, guardian of caravans, and hunter of ‘tea thieves’, Tenzin. We had heard of this legend but worried we wouldn’t track him down...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 17, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles Continued - A Sanctuary of Leaves
We are engulfed in the ancient tea forest. Damp earth and mushroom smells hit us as Napu walks out in front of us through an entire world...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 15, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Shar Gong La (The Eastern Gate Pass)
Upon the Tea Horse Road’s pathways (and there were many), traders, pilgrims, and muleteers alike would refer to the ‘middle route’ as...
Jeff Fuchs
- Dec 11, 2020
- 1 min
Tea Horse Road Chronicles, Part 5 - The Load (Gyap'kè)
A continuation of some of the embedded moments - both large and small - of our 7.5 month expedition to chart and document the Tea Horse...
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