Author Archives: JeffFuchs

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.

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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Spring 2019 – Part 2 – Solukhumbu – The Spires and The Everest Three Passes Trek

  The second part of our journey took us from the high arid zones of Mustang right into the rumbling, high spires of Solukhumbu. The lands of the Sherpa people, the Rai people and names like Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, and … Continue reading

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