About JeffFuchs
Bio
Having lived for most of the past decade in Asia, Fuchs’ work has centered on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories with an obsessive interest in tea. His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in award-winning publications Kyoto Journal, TRVL, and Outpost Magazine, as well as The Spanish Expedition Society, The Earth, Silkroad Foundation, The China Post Newspaper, The Toronto Star, The South China Morning Post and Traveler amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America and Asia and he serves as the Asian Editor at Large for Canada’s award-winning Outpost magazine.
Fuchs is the Wild China Explorer of the Year for 2011 for sustainable exploration of the Himalayan Trade Routes. He recently completed a month long expedition a previously undocumented ancient nomadic salt route at 4,000 metres becoming the first westerner to travel the Tsa’lam ‘salt road’ through Qinghai.
Fuchs has written on indigenous perspectives for UNESCO, and has having consulted for National Geographic. Fuchs is a member of the fabled Explorers Club, which supports sustainable exploration and research.
Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures. He has spoken to the prestigious Spanish Geographic Society in Madrid on culture and trade through the Himalayas and his sold out talk at the Museum of Nature in Canada focused on the enduring importance of oral narratives and the Himalayan trade routes.
His recently released book ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (Penguin-Viking Publishers) details his 8-month groundbreaking journey traveling and chronicling one of the world’s great trade routes, The Tea Horse Road. Fuchs is the first westerner to have completed the entire route stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas a dozen cultures.
He makes his home in ‘Shangrila’, northwestern Yunnan upon the eastern extension of the Himalayan range where tea and mountains abound; and where he leads expeditions the award winning ‘Tea Horse Road Journey’ with Wild China along portions of the Ancient Tea Horse Road.
To keep fueled up for life Fuchs co-founded JalamTeas which keeps him deep in the green while high in the hills.
At various times all of these gents were pivotal characters along the journey and in my life. The slim and polite denim-clad Sonam (at far right) belies one of the most ferocious wills and straight up strongmen that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and journeying with. Amongst this group he was the only one on every one of those 52 days and nights of journeying on the Lhasa portion and he would be a partner on dozens of subsequent mountain journeys. Continue reading →
Posted in Explorations, Mountains, Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Himalayas, Jeff Fuchs, Lhasa, mountains, Tea, tea and mountains, tea explorer film, Tea Horse Road, tea horse road chronicles, Tea Horse Road Expedition, Tibet
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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 Horse Road moved towards Dzogong, Chamdo, Lhasa and beyond. Nomads and their lands were … Continue reading →
Posted in Explorations, Mountains, Tea, Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Asian History, Cha Ma Gu Dao, Expedition, Himalayas, Horse Racing Festival, Jeff Fuchs, Lhasa, Nomads, tea and mountains, Tea Horse Road, tea horse road chronicles, Tibet, trade routes
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Napu went up the tea tree amid a forest of tea trees, shimmying along a support branch, until she could access the buds and leaves two metres off of the ground. I shimmied up along side her to watch her … Continue reading →
Posted in Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Camellia Sinensi, Cha Ma Gu Dao, China, Jeff Fuchs, Pu'erh, puer, Tea, Tea Horse Road, tea horse road chronicles, Tea Plucking, tea sourcing, tea travel, Xishuangbanna, yunnan
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One of the gems of old world Himalayan transport and the Tea Horse Road in particular was the yak hide ‘ferry’ that would take tea, salt, mules and journeyers across waterways where there were no bridges. It still does operate … Continue reading →
Posted in Mountains, Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Asian culture, Asian History, caravans, Cha Ma Gu Dao, Himalayan Trade, Himalayas, Jeff Fuchs, Pu'erh, Tea, tea and mountains, Tea Horse Road, tea horse road chronicles, tea travel
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Immersed in a hotspring that is tucked within a mountain cave, sitting beside the venerable and irrepressible Dorjè Kandro. Just days before, we began the fifty-two day walk from my – then – home in ‘Shangri-la’ (Gyalthang) in northwestern Yunnan, … Continue reading →
Dakpa and I had been rolling around tea forests, tea houses, and tea characters for months along strands and points of the Tea Horse Road at this point and though there were many ‘moments of the leaf’ upon our journey, … Continue reading →
Posted in Explorations, Tea, Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Cha Ma Gu Dao, China, Pan Frying, Pu'erh, puer, Tea, Tea Frying, tea horse road chronicles, the sourcing, Yiwu, yunnan
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This ‘moment’ was more accurately a series of moments and most of an afternoon, with an old muleteer and his wife. We interviewed the gentleman who lived near my home in Shangrila and he began (and ended) our chat with … Continue reading →
Posted in Explorations, Mountains, Tea, Tea Horse Road
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Tagged Asia, Cha Ma Gu Dao, China, Himalayan Portraits, Himalayas, Jeff Fuchs, Tea Horse Road, tea horse road chronicles, Travel, yunnan
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Legend, guardian of caravans, and hunter of ‘tea thieves’, Tenzin. We had heard of this legend but worried we wouldn’t track him down upon the route. Worried that we would not get time nor access to listen and take in … Continue reading →
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 Road. Along the Tea Horse Road, the careful daily ritual of loading and unloading … Continue reading →