With the New Year here in the present tense, we at Jalamteas wish to thank our sipping supporters who had a wonderful impact on our little venture of hand-sourcing rare Puerhs and getting them directly into your cups. We had buyers from seven countries purchase teas of our first Bada unfermented Puerh, and we’re now offering up a subscription model option here because of continued requests.
Lahu women of the Pulang Mountain area sort through dried tea leaves
Each month an entirely new Puerh, with a story of the people who cultivate and harvest it, an interactive ‘adventure link’ showing you where the tea is from, and some little pieces of wisdom from the indigenous pickers on what the teas are good for what ailments.
A Pulang elder looks at a leaf on an ancient tea tree and takes in far more information than anyone can know
We’ll continue to explore people, place, and plant, and continue to get great hard-to-find teas to you from Yunnan’s fabled southwest direct. Here’s to a tea-stained 2013.
The end result of a good session of slurping in Menghai: the leaves that gave delight, lie bare on a tea table
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.
