Almost ten years ago Andrew Gregg, sound magician Mike Josselyn, 90th Parallel, and I, made ’The Tea Explorer’ documentary. Many over the years have asked when it will be available for a more general viewing. Finally, the piece which (still) airs on CBC Docs in Canada is out on Youtube. A friend recently sent me a link saying it had been up for about a year. Now it sits, accessible, up on Youtube…albeit with heaps of ads.
Three of us spent a month retracing portions of the Tea and Horse Caravan routes, documenting what we could that was still humming of the days of trade (and tea). Much of the journey was a realization that the memory-banks of the days of trade were largely all that was left. Memories and stray, windblown pathways through the mountains.
Our little endeavour was entirely fuelled by – and about – tea. It was too, a project that increasingly was about the people who interacted (and interact still) with the eternal fuel and those epic routes through the sky.
Link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r9d83lqOtE&t=584s
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.
