Author Archives: JeffFuchs

About JeffFuchs

Having lived for a decade in Yunnan, Fuchs’ work has centred on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories along with an obsessive interest in tea. Fuchs is the author of 'The Ancient Tea Horse Road' (Viking-Penguin) and he was the subject of 'The Tea Explorer' documentary based on his exploration of the Tea Horse Road. His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in publications such as 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 UNESCO amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America, and Asia. Fuchs served as Asian Editor at Large for five years at award-winning Outpost magazine. Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures. 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. Fuchs partnered with Wild China to create a journey along the Tea Horse Road which National Geographic Traveler called one of the "50 Trips of a Lifetime". He is co-founder of Akahiao Nature Institute on the island of Hawai'i along with his wife, Julie Rogers.

White Tea Trials on the Big Island and the Memory of a Mentor

Perspective, the genius and inspiration of Mr. Gao, and a Hawaiian grown white tea Continue reading

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Langtang 3 – Top To Bottom and an Avalanche

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 – … Continue reading

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Langtang 2 – Across What Was

“We cannot change too much of what is there, but we can manage what we see and how we move forward”, Uncle Dawa says at one point over a tea. As with so much in my own frames of life, tea is a conduit and facilitator. It is a fluid that soothes, and stimulates. Continue reading

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Langtang – Himalayan Water Towers…and herbs

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 … Continue reading

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Feature Article in Outpost – The Kingdom of Lo (Mustang)

Climate in the Himalayas Continue reading

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Umami Flows West to Puerh and its Bite

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 … Continue reading

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The Teahouse – Japan Flows Forward

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. … Continue reading

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Gyokuro Moments with Tea People – Japan

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. Expected … Continue reading

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Our “In From the Outpost” TV Teasers Are Officially Out

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. Link here for Teasers During our journey … Continue reading

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Northern India – A collaboration with Exodus Travels and the Royal Canadian Geographic Society

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. … Continue reading

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