Jeff FuchsApr 2, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Departure and the CherubThe final destination along the Tea Horse Road, both for our own expedition and for the great journeys of the past, was Kalimpong, in...
Jeff FuchsMar 26, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - The Tea That Never CameA simple tea room in Weishan, Yunnan, and one of the only tea rooms in my life that I failed to actually have tea in. Weishan was another...
Jeff FuchsMar 9, 20212 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Part Goat and a Little Part HumanOver 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 FuchsMar 7, 20212 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Choices, No Choices, and some CourageAscending up to the Sho La Pass in northwestern Yunnan in May there would always be a chance of weather issues, but it would still be a...
Jeff FuchsFeb 27, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Tea and BloodlinesOn foot our team of four puttered and wandered west (often faintly lost) through the Nyanqen Tanghla mountains in Tibet towards Lhasa....
Jeff FuchsFeb 21, 20211 minTea Horse Chronicles - The BendIt 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 FuchsFeb 11, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Other Tales and SightNot 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 FuchsFeb 3, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Empress of ClothPonzera, or Benzilan as it is now known, is a small valley town in northwestern Yunnan that lies alongside a headwater stream of the...
Jeff FuchsJan 28, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Way Out, and Out AgainYeshi 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 FuchsJan 26, 20211 minTea 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 FuchsJan 23, 20211 minTea Horse Chronicles - Blessings and WarningsIt was from this patch of grassland near Napa Lake, just north of my home in Dukezong (old town of 'Shangrila') that our expedition...
Jeff FuchsJan 14, 20211 minTea 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 FuchsJan 7, 20211 minTea Horse Chronicles - The Hostess, The KeeperA 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 FuchsJan 5, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - Jokhang BoysAfter 52 days of trekking from my then home in Zhongdian (aka: Shangrila/Jiantang/Gyalthang) in northwestern Yunnan, a small celebration...
Jeff FuchsJan 2, 20211 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - A Gathering of WomenNomadic 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 FuchsDec 28, 20201 minTea 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 FuchsDec 27, 20201 minTea Horse Chronicles - The FryDakpa and I had been rolling around tea forests, tea houses, and tea characters for months at this point along portions and strands of...
Jeff FuchsDec 24, 20201 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - He Said, She KnewThis ‘moment’ was more accurately a series of moments and most of an afternoon, with an old muleteer and his wife. We interviewed the...
Jeff FuchsDec 23, 20201 minTea Horse Road Chronicles - TenzinLegend, guardian of caravans, and hunter of ‘tea thieves’, Tenzin. We had heard of this legend but worried we wouldn’t track him down...
Jeff FuchsDec 17, 20201 minTea 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...