Langtang 3 – Top To Bottom and an Avalanche

Posted on January 17, 2020 by JeffFuchs

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 – and when outdoors, there is much that matters to our energetic Mingmar. He carries an extra back pack for juniper that he will collect, which will in turn be dried and used as incense. Above all of us is the land where ice, stone, winds, and the occasional avalanche rule.

Always in the mind, adjacent to the huge landscapes are the words and thoughts of locals. In this case, Maya…eternal Maya

The sun is mad with strength today pummelling us with bolts. Enough tea is in me to feel at peace with everything. Amy and Dawa lug film equipment upwards and Debra plods along at her slow steady pace. Dawa ‘the elegant’ is with us as well and we dot the path in a long broken line heading north into the bowl valley that holds Kyanjin Glacier, Lirung Glacier and provides a basin which holds glacier melt water.

There are no better visceral moments for me than when ‘tea’d up’, wandering upwards in the Himalayas with an empathetic group around me. That old idea, as skewered as it might seem, of ‘autonomy’, and having  honed down one’s needs into a bag is something utterly settling.

A moment with one of the elders who spend so much time amidst the Himalayan Water Towers

As magic as the tangible environment around us is, a line from Beau Lotto’s provocative beauty of a book: Deviate, comes through “What makes the human mind beautiful? We’re delusional!”. Daunting to some, mesmeric to others the spaces we travel through are unambiguous and clear. Risks and lines are delineated in solid forms. What is also clear is how proximate the source of water is. It rests in ebbing bodies of ice above us and it rests within the mountain springs in unknown quantities.

A portion of the Kyanjin Glacier

Part of the beauty (which cannot possibly be delusional) is that which lies before us coming down from 7000 metres. The Lirung Glaciers splays and spreads in lines of dirty ice, moraine, and in stone ploughing down over centuries a massive trough to our left (west). To the east of us the more ‘perfect’ traditional glacier of glistening blue and geometry of the Kyanjin Glacier.

While checking kit and cameras, a slight ripple in the air draws us to turn as a huge spray explodes high on the eastern flank of the Langtang Lirung. An avalanche (link to a time-lapse of the first avalanche) has been triggered and a dull rumbling roar is suddenly the entire backdrop of sound. While it exhilarates and stirs the blood it cannot help but distress. More ice, more snow descending, more water in crystal powder form up and whoosh down in a cloud to disappear.

We set up a small base-camp along the eastern lip of the Lirung, shedding socks and lying them atop rocks which burn with heat. One of the treats of altitudes is to shed cloth and let the sun’s power cleanse! We film and stare and marvel. We listen to everyone’s thoughts on what ice means to them. Sonam’s thoughts are clear and perhaps the most poignant. “No one here denies that ice is disappearing. It isn’t a argument. It is our fact. And it is our water which disappears”.

That bit of wonder when the socks come off in a high mountain sun

He and his mala are busy as he looks up at the ice and stone. Mingmar still looks for stems, leaves, and anything with value that can be carted down. He is a forager without equal. The two Dawa’s are still in awe of the avalanche exploded downwards, their eyes tracing what is left of the powdered crystals which ever so slightly mute the sunlight, dazzling the entire sky overhead.

One of the larger of the avalanches – and one of the first to ripple the air on 

Three more avalanches will rattle and smoke their way down the eastern side in the coming hours. Some are delicate, carving their way down in a steam trail while others boom and jolt in small explosions. Each leave a small mark and memory.


Sonam speaks of temperature changes – changes which in themselves are nothing new. But, he speaks urgently of the speed in which the changes come. Adaptation is something that his people have been bound too for centuries, but nothing in their narratives that he’s heard of have spoken of the speed of these current alterations in temperature or of how the seasons suddenly morph without transition.

Dawa the Elegant with a soul as old as the mountains. Like so many who reside within the mountains, he is clear about changes that he sees hourly and clear about how everything is connected. It is this need for connecting elements that marks so clearly the philosophies of the mountains.

There are no local agendas here regarding the environment other than survival and prosperity. Here too I’ve heard words and sentiments that echo other mountain dwellers’ thoughts: that what happens here will inevitably affect the communities further down. There is an inuitive understanding here that all is linked and connected and that nothing within the environmental realm is silo’d or separate.

—

Mingmar is suddenly asleep. He is still and immobile for the first time on this journey and it seems almost abnormal not to have him fussing. Sonam lies beside him with a cloth atop his face to protect against a sun that is relentless and all powerful. Amy hovers filming on a small outcrop as clouds rush and disappear. Both Dawa’s too lie cocooned beside each other with jackets over their faces. Pasang, Debra, and I watch the sky silently.

Debra and I have long spoken about the desire and need to connect these water towers which seem so distant (but aren’t) to the faucets of the cities. To link the idea that they are inextricably bound to one another. Here precious resources lie easily seen in the mind because they are right there. Water is everything here because it is so close and proximate. Debra points at the whole layered mountain range around us and says, “It is all right here isn’t it?”. Considered exotic by many, these locations are remarkably tangible, as are their resources and it is perhaps because of this that locals are so environmentally aware. Their voices too remain clear and refreshingly non-political.

Mingmar, the two Dawa’s, and Pasang tidy up prayer flags removing dust and hanging new ones. To honour the mountains is to honour the relationship that mortals have with them.

Our packed lunches feed us and thermoses of ‘tea’ revive us. As always it is the relentless Mingmar, fully rested from his nap, that prods us onwards. “Let’s move. I need to collect Juniper”. We move.

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Langtang 2 – Across What Was

Posted on January 5, 2020 by JeffFuchs

Langtang, the land called “Ox’s land” is grassland valley and ‘was’ a village…one that has been destroyed, reset eastward and rebuilt (if such a thing is possible). It lives again not far from a swath of rubble, stone, and line strokes that descend from the north. An avalanche obliterated the village with inhabitants, travellers, and animals alike being wiped out. The ‘new’ Langtang sits just east and higher than the swath of stone that covers what once was. Crossing the rubble that was once a village along a dirt pathway as light turns blue mountain cold comes with the knowledge of what lies below our feet.

The trance like spectre always rides our horizons – ever upwards. Mountains shade and shape Langtang’s valley. 

Mingmar has continued his foraging for anything of value in the soil. And, there is much in that soil! He has secured us entry into a nomadic shelter to sip some of the rich ‘sho’ (yak yoghurt) that carries a tang of sweet-sour beauty. Mingmar laments fields that lie fallow and show little signs of life or care and he speaks with raging directness and clarity. He laments too that locals would have once been more self-sufficient and known what to grow and when and been proud of their self-sufficiency rather than proud of an imported item.

Langtang habits are the habits of the Himalayas. One such is a draw to me – the making of the local ‘arra’ or whisky.

Now, he repeats what many have said throughout the Himalayas, that too much is imported and depended upon; that too much that could be produced locally is brought in on backs wrapped in plastics that will have to find their way out of the mountains once again. He fears the loss of so much wisdom that contributed to an autonomy of sorts. Mingmar and his rants are things that delight in an ominous way and he cannot be deterred from them.

Guesthouse owner Pasang. Gravelly voice, perpetually in motion and like so many in the valley, one who lost many family and friends in the avalanche of 2015.

He has been a guide for decades and is one of the rare ones that can identify almost every dialect, herb, and nugget of cultural significance of a region and he is one who cares not for any overly polite demonstrations. He knows the glaciers but not by the name any researchers have bestowed…he knows the glaciers by their old hereditary Tibetan names. He speaks from the blood, to the any and all and to the air and winds as much as to us. He easily swings into his speeches without any prompting knowing they are welcome and real.

When not foraging, cooking, or engaged in one of his long monologues, he pays tribute to his beliefs and deities. He does so in as passionate a manner as he does in every single other element in his life. 

Our interviews begin in a more formal way in Langtang village, with our questions being put to different generations. Questions of what has changed and evolved or disappeared and how the community and environment interaction has morphed are the focus areas. Elder Dawa and his niece the younger Dawa (Kandro) speak similarly and of common threads – despite their age difference of almost four decades. Her wonderful witty mother Maya (with a penchant for sitting on floors with a cup of tea) in bucket loads shares how the mountains are simply home and that with any home one has to care for it and live with it. It is all, she believes, connected. All things, times, and spaces are interconnected for her.

Maya, who entranced with humour, directness, and spontaneously walking out of rooms mid-sentence. An absolute gem of wisdom.

Many here speak of the need to see concept of change in a larger context than simply the present tense. The elder Dawa had lost close members of his family to the avalanche which piled downwards from the Langtang Lirung. He urges and pleads for the need to continue to revere Nature and the peaks, despite the threat that lurks above. He also mirrors much of Mingmar’s thoughts on how so much ‘earth-know-how’ has disappeared because of the ability of youth to access farther-away worlds of modern life. A glacier was once a sacred thing to locals. Now, it is something that is sometimes not even acknowledged.

Much of Maya’s wisdom came out when sipping straight black tea. I was content with any time at all around this mother of the mountains. 

Part of my own thought process in all of this is how much more linear and non-agenda oriented are the thoughts of these who live within the water towers that feed Asia. It is visceral and tangible in the most simple manner of observation. It is that simplest and most dragged out and tortured of things these days: fact. It is fact for the perceptions of those who spend most of every day within the eye of such diminishing and fragile elements.

The two Dawa’s take in a memorial for those lost in the 2015 avalanche. They know only too well the mountains’ force being from the Kunlun region of Nepal.

“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.

A beautiful moment mid-conversation with Uncle Dawa in the foreground and Pasang both listening to others within our room.

To our east the land continues to rise towards Kyanjin Gomba. Most families in this upper quadrant of the valley are linked to cousins’, parents’, or friends’ homes somewhere along the valley. As much as the paths are conduits for trekkers, they are meeting places for locals and pathways for their own journeys. Still the valley is bound by those that reside within and with the news that is transported by word of mouth. Connections here are pleasingly informal still.

Looking east towards Dorje Lhakpa

Snow drives down on us as we approach Kyanjin and then it ebbs, treating us to a sky of grey and silver popping blurs. Temperatures and wind levels both drop. The two porters Dawa, power ahead with their loads moving fast to arrive and settle and install themselves with a cup of tea. Their pace is like so many of the porters and mountain carriers. They prefer frequent but brief breaks making excellent time with the kind of intuitive knowledge of their strengths and limitations.
Below the glaciers, tea is brewed

Always, there is tea brewing. Here Kersang of Mountain View Guesthouse in Kyanjin does the honours…with some gusto!

Kyanjin village is a pocket of bright coloured guesthouses of tin and stone that is parked at north of the valley; where mountains rise. Mountain View Guesthouse is where we will stash kit, sip tea and treat as a home. Sonam and Kersang run the collection of beds from their kitchen, which like every single human space in the valley, is the heart of the home. Fires burn in stoves with dung still the preferred method of fuelling.

Kyanjin’s western edge 

Sonam is one of those sturdy witnesses of his surroundings who smiles much but worries about the environment in a way that many who live with Nature’s every mood do. He has watched ice and snow ebb, and with it he has watched as water channels of melt water disappear. Glacial melt water flows from the north down into the valley and the equally vital Spring water which finds its sources deep within the stone hollows, follows a different channels further south. It is the Spring water that he worries most about simply because the sources are not seen. “Those mountains are losing ice and snow every year. I can see their change. Our water is the water of cities too”.

Young Dawa, already with mountain wisdom imbued in her shares her own generations views on the environment and her Himalayan home.

His wife Kersang is a body of motion as she prepares tea, food…and more tea each hour. Butter tea in her household is made in the early morning with an optional addition of Snow Rhododendron petals, which fortifies the already solid brew of fuel.

Kyanjin with a cold front moving in 

My diminishing hunk of Puerh starts the mornings before any of the potent butter tea makes its way into my system. We will head up into the basin that forms a catchment for both the Lirung and the Kyanjin glaciers in two days time. It will be the place where the words and observations of those who live amidst meet up with the ice and water bodies that morph and ebb.

Always, everything is started, stated and completed with tea. From left: Mingmar, Dawa, and Pasang with some morning strong brew.

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Langtang – Himalayan Water Towers…and herbs

Posted on December 16, 2019 by JeffFuchs
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 one of most provocative characters in Himalayan lore, Milarepa, is said to have gone entirely green during his meditations on a diet exclusively made up of nettles. 

That brilliant Tibetan yogi known for achieving an enlightened state in one lifetime…and for his green diet.

Up we head and the air eases into something colder, harder and clearer. Gone are the scents of soil and moss and more there is an edge that rifles up into the sinuses. Still more tree lines with the birch disappearing altogether at one point. They seem at odds with the place, standing in a deliberate forest all on their own, too clean and orderly they seem. The Langtang River smothers and smashes its way east pulled onwards and different rhododendron infuse spaces, seemingly everywhere. Our resident medicine man Mingmar is giddy with what grows and what he recognizes uses for…which is almost everything. He grew up north of us across the border in the very nearby Tibet, though so much is similar there in dialect and culture that the term ‘border’ seems cruel. 

Throughout the Lantang valley Mingmar could be found foraging two inches above ground for medicines, herbs, and aphrodisiacs.

He is a burrowing presence for much of our journey thus far, rooting around, collecting, explaining and stuffing the different items in his bag.

My own clump of necessity and ‘medicine’ – a robust He Kai Sheng Puerh. Treated like a last panacea I used the leaves sparingly, though they began each and every single day on the journey.

Langtang (literally “Ox’s place or Ox’s grassland) is a simple to access valley. Six hours from Kathmandu and yet north just kilometres away is the official border with Tibet. Fallow fields lie within stone fence lines hinting at what once was. Mingmar constantly wonders aloud why there isn’t any sign of life within. “They have forgotten”, he says at one point. Tourism runs much of the Lantang and this (from Mingmar’s perspective) is dangerous dependency.

Nettles line the carpet beneath us as we move upwards…and in this case, they are the stinging kind.

We move as a team of seven to document what we can of glaciers, the mountains, and the locals’ observations of them. This region knows only too well of the interconnectedness of nature and mortals. During the hugely destructive earthquake of 2015 in Nepal, the shaking set off a horrific avalanche that plunged down into and onto the valley and village of Langtang – more than 300 lives were lost. 

What lurks above, all of the time is what holds much of the fresh water supply of Asia – the Third Pole

Our team of seven includes the effervescent Pasang Sherpa who has been with me on several journeys, Mingmar Tsering Lama (Mr. Medicine) who has long been known to me though this is the first journey together in the flesh and two Dawa Sherpa’s.

Left to right – without whom we would not have endeavoured: Mingmar, Dawa the ‘Elegant’, Pasang, and Dawa the ‘Rugged’.

The younger and broader of the two carries a face that varies between childhood dreaming and an uncle’s frowns. The elder is one of those elegant souls that the mountains often produce, in seeming contrast to the daunting terrain. Lean and fine boned he is perhaps the strongest of us all while being mild and brimming with manners.

Pasang the Magician in a moment of morning chill. A man that I’ve never seen panic.

Debra Tan joins me once again in documenting locals’ views of the environment and along with us is Amy Sellmyer, who has proven to be an enlightened mountain being of easy needs and grinding toughness. 

Amy hooks a mic onto the incredible Maya (more on this formidable mountain steward in a follow up blog).

As with many of the last journeys into the mountains two things remain identical: I have loads of tea to fuel me/us/whomever, and we come to document the locals’ views; those who live and breath within these Himalayan Water Towers that feed so much of Asia’s fresh water sources. 

Debra Tan and I and one of those titans of the mountains who speak more truth in two sentences than most do in a paragraph, because time wasting in the mountains isn’t conducive to surviving.

We come to sit, listen and observe those, who’s agenda’s on climate are uncomplicated. Living on the very frontline of a potent and sensitive ‘Nature’, they breath in change with lungs and watch it with eyes, rather than read about it. 

Matriarchs abound in the valley serving up warmth and fluid and by extension, hold it all together.

As always too, we move with the good graces of the mountain fates. 

Mingmar has one of his moments. There were many such moments in Langtang coming at all hours, with and without warning. He engaged with anyone and everyone….at anytime.

Waking one day to find pieces of small ice particles popping on our jackets, Mingmar digs deep beneath a long copper coloured stalk into the semi-frozen earth. Offering up a curled white root he smiles, “This is good for the man’s ‘thing’”. I shudder, he smiles, and we all continue upwards…ever upwards towards a village that was erased by an avalanche, Langtang. 
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Feature Article in Outpost – The Kingdom of Lo (Mustang)

Posted on November 19, 2019 by JeffFuchs

Timely cover feature in Outpost magazine as I head back up and into Nepal’s Himalayas and their tales and characters, their struggles, and stunning bits of magic. The shepherd I’m chatting with on the cover, spoke more clearly about the “changing weather” question, with less of an agenda, and more common sense than most mortals with a shirt on that I’ve encountered within the urban worlds. I’ve long wondered when it is that we will actively encourage and invite these characters and their tales (from ground zero) into the greater narrative of policy making for a future. Earth needs their old interconnected wisdom and empathy.

The above shepherd didn’t need time to think about answers. He spoke simply about lands he has trudged since childhood. Once again, it wasn’t so much change itself that he found startling; it was the speed of change. He spoke of his goats as clever and stubborn creatures that were his lifeblood. He spoke too of the need for beliefs to explain and rationalize why the “skies had changed”.

Mountains have long offered up guarded sanctuaries of beauty (if that is one’s thing) and they have also offered up knowledge basins and characters who remember common sense remedies and lifestyles that (if not always ideal) are still connected to something ‘connected’. Whether it be with climate, relationships, or simply the concept of sustainability (which ties in more to standard living than a separate concept for them).

Always a bow of the head and a smile as I return to the ‘hills’ and their lessons from the out and the within. As always, I have a tea cake stashed away for the always and all the time sessions while in the ‘beautiful ups’.

The He Kai cake that will feed and fuel. One of the old stand-byes for travel.

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Umami Flows West to Puerh and its Bite

Posted on November 2, 2019 by JeffFuchs

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 beauty. Japan gives way to Yunnan. Teas with a time and a moment give way to teas with an unpredictable possibility of brilliance.

A last blast of Gyokuro and its Umami before the flight west

Those taints of Umami still rolling around like a veritable memory within and upon the palate, must give way as I return to Yunnan and the home of Puerh; the tea with some vegetal bite that I’ve craved for so very long.

The so called ‘off-season’ for Puerh (in this case right now) is as informative and revealing (and perhaps more) as it is amidst the height of the manic Spring harvest that commences late February. Growers and producers have time to sit and impart their often underrated bits of information without so much panic of a sale. They take tea as they chat and they have that precious commodity of time, to spend and share.

Feng in his shop of leafy green pleasures

Weather is dry and the tea forests are in a period of unmolested growth, while the villages are settled and relaxed.

Arrival to Xishuangbanna is usually a race from the airport in Jinghong to Menghai. Old friends, familiar tea houses, and an almost immediate immersion into the leaf world all await in Menghai where habits are well established. This journey is delayed only slightly in Jinghong as a recommended tea house is visited.

Mr. Feng serves Puerh in that manner that reminds that all elements can matter, even here in Yunnan. Japan’s brilliance may lie with its attention to detail and carefully managed flavour profiles, but here too there are those advocates of the leaf that are about the moment and the detail. Feng is entirely one of those.

His vessel of choice for a Puerh that grabs the palate

He uses clay vessels rather than ceramic gai-wan’s. Every pot has its tea and for the upcoming 10-year old Bulang old tree Puerh offering, he selects a square chocolate vessel of burnished clay. Every thing around Feng has been kept clean, minimal and smooth. The tea on offer is harvested from 100 + year old trees, and is one of his favourites. Harvested 10 years ago, it was compressed 8 years ago into 250 gram cakes of which he nurtures one every half year or so. It is caramel given life upon the palate with strength in the edges and as the infusions run on, the mineral layers begin to arrive without really relenting.

The cake that made it under my arm

One reminder of a strangely under-transmitted bit of information is emphasized by Feng about Puerhs and the discussion of ageing, when he says “It doesn’t matter how good a Puerh might be; if the storage of a tea isn’t managed well, that tea won’t end up a good tea”. By managing storage, he speaks of a cool, dry, aerated space without odours. It is one of the last things he says as I depart, as though imparting some wisdom that he feels isn’t given enough time.

 A welcome bit of sipping and information within Feng’s tea shop and exactly the odd diversion can (and should) bring – an off-grid informative treat. It also warrants walking out of Feng’s shop with one of those 250 gram cakes tucked under my arm.

Where tea culture is still as simple as it is frequent. It takes little beyond leaves, time and some water here to enjoy a stunning leaf offering

Finally west and south I slip into the Menghai zone. Walking up through Nannuo Mountain’s shrieking air of cicada chorus, certain old trees rest with their buds freshly snipped. Only certain trees though. Most trees have all of their buds remaining, allowed to prosper and develop readying their stem channels and leaves for the future.

Old and ancient tea tree forests near Nannuo Mountain. Those ‘supports’ are actually walking planks that allow the villagers to ascend and pluck from the higher branches.

Those freshly snipped stems and missing buds remain in the mind until later, when entering a nearby village to sip of the local harvests I spot a billowing bag of ‘white’ end buds. I’m told by a local Hani producer that he is trying new things with his ancient tree Yunnan-big leaf varietals. And so, he has clipped single, yet-to-unfurl end buds and sun dried them. They are a summer harvest and they are, in the words of our young host, “an attempt”.

Some of that ‘Puerh White’

Their thicker skin and more durable general structure allow (he tells me) for more infusions and hotter temperatures of water. Beyond that he makes no claims but it is enough that I must sample. Slow to unleash flavours, it takes 2 infusions of around 30 seconds to start releasing a narcotic cream and floral stream into the mouth. While lacking perhaps some of the delicacy that one associates with classic ‘white’ teas, like Silver Needle or White Peony, it carries some of the strength of a Gong Mei (Tribute Eyebrow), which like this ‘Puerh White’, is harvested later in the Spring or Summer.

The heat end of the production area in a small village. Wood is carefully burned in small vertical holes to heat pans, which are located ‘behind’ the wall. With the white tea above, the leaves are simply picked and sun and shade dried.

The young man speaks of diets and changing tastes, the rise of coffee amongst the young, and he speaks of increasing efforts to find different markets for leaves typically used for pan fried Puerh. He is a simple entrepreneur with great raw materials giving something new a shot.

Everyone wants a piece of the coveted elite strata of Puerh, which while lucrative to some, actually doesn’t apply to very many areas or villages beyond the big fabled few names within the Puerh tea world. This young producer is part of the movement forward.

I get into the action discussing the move by locals from solely Puerh production into red and white tea production

A bag of his white also finds its way under my arm.

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The Teahouse – Japan Flows Forward

Posted on October 18, 2019 by JeffFuchs

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.

Clean light and simple lines introduce a space of few needs. The teahouse reigns.

Sitting with the buzz of energy that is the Sensei of this teahouse, a serving of Sake is offered with a long story of how it was made, by whom, and why it is important that it come before tea. Giggles, welcoming on a wet night and loads of informality ease what I think ‘might’ be in store.

The same kettle will be used with a different insert to prepare both the tea water and the rice

Layer upon layer of stories come out in the whirr of activity amidst the small space of candlelight and tatami’s. It is a space that is deliberately shorn of things not needed.

Tea utensils – the needs

Sensei is ruminating and in a humming motion of talk and actions along with smiles. Joy is present within this starkly lit little square of clean tones. A huge water kettle bubbles and bamboo utensils sit in a tidy little rectangle of space…here in this room they are the needs!!

During a more solemn moment (very brief) where ceremony is required.

Another concept of  the teahouse is quickly put to the side as well. Food will be served before a tea is offered…and so will Sake. Not a thing will be wasted. Ceremony will intersperse with laughter and movement. Offerings of Sake are made to the master by the guests to ensure that the concept of ‘offerings’ are first and foremost.

I offer our esteemed master a sip of Sake

Many reminders of how the teahouse here in Japan (and throughout Asia) has been far more than simply a place of formality and structure are emphasized with each passing second. The teahouse is a space to commune, engage, and share.

The sacred element that makes it all work: water

Food served, Sake slurped, stories of each and every single item within the teahouse explained and then, and only then, much later, is a thick layer of Koicha (the thick green paste that is the result of whisked Matcha) served to us.

Koicha in all of its remarkable glory

A second thinner tea, called Usucha, is then served to clean up the remnants (and not waste) of the first tea serving.

It is all about serving and sharing

And then, more Sake. The night with its confluence of stimulants and sake, rice and superb food elements is just beginning. The night will willingly flow forward.

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Gyokuro Moments with Tea People – Japan

Posted on October 10, 2019 by JeffFuchs

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.

Always instructive are the farmers themselves or those who spend heaps of time within the gardens. The speak more truths about tea in a shorter period than any sales guru I’ve ever met. In a field of leaves that will become Sencha in Mie Prefecture.

Expected was a slightly more rigid adherence to form and protocol. Yes, there is a maniacal attention to detail and to what Japan does so well with leaves, stems, and twigs of the tea bush: the steaming; but there has also been a wonderful warmth to the view of tea’s role in the lives of locals.

Off season though it may be, getting close to the small plots that produce the shaded gem that is Gyokuro still brings slight shivers

Some of the little instructive moments thus far that come gently, all at once, or just after a sip or six. The concept and flavour of Umami repeatedly came up regarding some Senchas and the prized Gyokuro’s.

An old master of Gyokuro production spoke about that elusive Umami honestly in words that were clear and inspired. “It is something almost sweet but not quite. I don’t know how else to describe it, but when it is absent in a tea, I know it”.

A wider vessel with a lid that can press down upon the leaves to extract every last drop of Gyokuro. The lower the temperature, the better if one wants the maximum impact of Umami on the palate.

Sipping the Gyokuro with 40-50 Celsius water revealed Umami that curled through the mouth unlike anything else in leaf form, other than perhaps zingy serving of one of the many varieties of sea kelp.

Using water with only a moderate amount of heat is ideal for Gyokuro and its Umami blasts. It was repeatedly recommended by growers and producers to serve the tea at between 40-50 degrees Celsius with a few minutes of infusion time

Small plot gardens rule here and the farmers and producers speak with a clarity that lays waste to some of the hyped up deliberately mystical references to tea. Here tea is spoken of simply, regardless of how complex and delicate the flavour profiles are that are coaxed and gently massaged out of the leaves.

Leaves that will provide the raw materials of Gyokuro

Unlike so much of the tea produced, Gyokuro’s small plots demand a skill set with production to maximize the quality of the small quantities made annually. The very best Gyokuro’s are made from leaves harvested once a year in April-May.

Tea’s tools are immaculate, kept spotless and passed down from generation to generation reminding that while harvests will change, the tools don’t have to.  The plight too of the farmers who are increasingly at the whim of price points and weather events is made clear and bare.

A Chagama hangs over smokeless bamboo charcoal keeping the water warm but not hot.

After having an afternoon of immaculate company and fuelled entirely by round after round of Gyokoru, the spent leaves were collected, plopped onto small plates and had a few small drops of soya sauce added. Nothing wasted, we were encouraged to eat the leaves as a kind of finale to the drinking session. Another drinking session was on the near horizon but for now, we would eat the leaves that had given us such joy in a liquid form.

Gyokuro spent leaves

A last little savoury ‘dessert’ – spent Gyokuro leaves

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

Posted on September 11, 2019 by JeffFuchs

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.

That city of so much ‘zing’, history, and altitude, Cusco – and our base of operations while we were in Peru

Link here for Teasers

One of the elders in Chawaytiri who still spins wool and remembers the vitality of collaboration with the natural elements

During our journey to Peru our entire film team became absolutely bound to this concept of reciprocity and consensus building. How bizarre that the concept isn’t more widely used. I’ve seen it at work in all of the mountain cultures I’ve had to pleasure to immerse in and it is perhaps because of the mountains’ dominance that people still understand the value of it.

Part of our extraordinary team of mountain journeyers. Left to right: Wilfredo Huillca Gamarra, Alexander Estral, Benjamin our Shaman, myself, Jackie Bobrowsky, and our ‘runner’ Domingo Elias Townsend in the Salkantay region.

It was introduced by many of the locals who knew well how vital a principal it was (and still is). It is very much alive in many of the rituals and community gatherings and projects, where its practise is there to remind of the value of needing (and valuing) one another despite all other issues.

Our team looks on at (yes, true) coffee beans being hand roasted over a low heat. And yes, delicious

Interesting too is that the word when it is said, is pronounced identically to the Mandarin for “love you”, or “Ài nǐ” (爱你).

Another of the holders of the mountain wisdom near Chawaytiri, with a good hunk of coca in his cheek

Four teaser episodes are now out of the incredible time along portions of the Inca Road and with some of the communities we were fortunate enough to travel and meet. Not simply the place(s) though were of importance…there are philosophies and concepts that are so very much needed in this present time of so much rampant division. Ayni is one of those concepts that remain with me and hopefully inundate a little our teasers.

I get to serve – and offer – tea to the team and to the epic Machu Picchu behind. A tribute of both tea and coca was made to the city in the mountains.

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

Posted on August 13, 2019 by JeffFuchs

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. Rituals, tea, intensity, ferocious colour…and more tea.

Collaboration with Exodus Travels, the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, and myself gets into as much of the raging life in India’s north as we can.

The pageantry, the chaos, the colour, and the full-time-360-degrees of life occurring, egged on by tea and the senses. One of the spaces that should be taken in for all that it is – and isn’t. More info here on the journey.

Worship, speed, intensity, and that happy blur of it all impacting – India

Journey covered by Forbes magazine.

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

Posted on June 29, 2019 by JeffFuchs

 

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 Ama Dablam. More people, more lunacy certainly, and more of the human realm as we came right at peak climbing season. This post is more of an assortment of images with some thoughts and quotes than any kind of attempt at a narrative. Our journey took a counter-clockwise direction rather than the more traditional clockwise direction, owing in large part to better views of the mountains at certain times of day and the desire to ensure enough time for the vital ‘3 Passes’.

Vitally too, our team is just that…a team of friends who’s habits, loves, and eccentricities have become more clear in the passing weeks.

The bizarre and wonderful Namche Bazaar, where colours demarcate hotels, hostels, coffee shops…but few local dwellings.

Bolder colours with coffee shops and the brilliant and utterly bizarre spectacles that were Namche Bazaar and Everest Base Camp open open up. They lead to more remote zones and peaks that seem – with every single year – to drop more and more of their white glacial sheaths. All changes and is impermanent.

The irreplaceable Pasang Sherpa. Elegant and utterly prepared…always.

Pasang, in his role as resident magician remains unparalleled. The elegant hard man who is never short of ideas, retains his kindness, competence and just a tad of delicious irreverence. Such souls make all journeys that much more authentic.

The monastery at Tengboche. On our way up.

Each day begins with tea, masala chai, or coffee. One early morning Pasang shows up to my tent to say that there isn’t any more masala for the teas (which I’m in need of). He lets a long silence ensue (and enjoys watching my expression sag, he tells me) before laughing and disappearing, telling me it is his ‘joke of the day’.

The Bull, Dawa Sherpa. One of the musts of any journey are the locals. Dawa, along with our two Pasangs allowed us to move through the big spaces.

We are gifted with two exceptionally strong Sherpas. Dawa Sherpa, I come to call Humming Power, due to his all-day humming and utter strength. The second, is another Pasang Sherpa, who becomes Endurance Man in my mind. They inevitably (and quickly) become family.

Mountain ingenuity. Kettles set upon a ‘sun collector’. No wires, no chords…the the big orb in the sky to boil the water.

Regardless of the humans, the mountains open up and it becomes easier and easier to disappear. Ama Dablam becomes a beacon of utter beauty to our east as we make our way to the ’10 hut community’ of Chukung.

Beneath, always beneath. Behind, one of Ama Dablam’s exquisite walls

Lake Imja sprawls its ever-widening swath of glacial melt, and on its edges are monitors that maintain a kind of tech-vigil on increasing depths and the risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF’s)

Lake Imja, near Island Peak and Ama Dablam. The lake is monitored and recently had both the Indian and Nepalese armies working to secure its borders. Lake Imja is at risk of GLOF (Glacial Lake Outburst Flood).

And still, Ama Dablam holds up the sky for us, even as higher peaks rise around her. It is her, again and again, that my own eyes inevitably drift to find.

Ama Dablam (Mother’s Necklace)

The first of the high passes, Kongma La is refreshingly empty of bodies. It, if only briefly, is ours to ascend and breath in.

A pocket glacier rests just below the 5535 metre Kongma La.

Unlike Mustang, where we had a feeling of autonomy with mules, supplies, and camps all within our sphere of control, the Khumbu region is about tea houses and porter power. It is about permits and bodies that haul loads that dwarf mortal bodies.

Our second – but equal – Pasang Sherpa. A man who’s power seemed to only increase through our journey through the Solukhumbu.

Everest Base Camp looms, built (and built again) upon shifting ice and glaciers. Yellow tents dot the space and seem to be on borrowed time in the mountains’ infinite moods…and a warming climate.

The lip of the Rombuk Glacier above Everest Base Camp.

All of us are intent upon taking in what we can, while the landscape has this much white left upon it.

A team shot at Everest Base Camp. Left to right (top to bottom) Dawa Sherpa, Jim ‘Big Daddy’ La Torre, myself, Pasang Gelu Sherpa, Christian Santelices, and our second Pasang Sherpa (aka ‘The Magician’).

Knife edge pieces of ice and sooty moraine launch and splay themselves in every direction.

Part of the bizarre spectacle that is Everest Base Camp, Spring 2019.

Above us, the skies of the morning promise eternal light while early afternoon winds bring in sheets of grey power and fogs. We wake early to take in what we can of the eternal light moving fast and light.

Christian and Jim rest easy in a rising sun on Kala Pathar.

There is in our entire team the desire to escape the whole zone of Everest’s draw to the masses and get back into the more remote pass areas. Human foot traffic at times verges on maniacal, with many unprepared even for basic walks at altitude, much less anything even remotely serious.

Gingerly making our way atop shifting glaciers to Dzong La Pass (4830 metres)

This shared commitment to the silences and more remote spaces binds us and it is what every journey to the mountains requires, at least in some form: purpose.

I get a moment with Pasang to just take in some of the elements. Some moments of homage to the mountains. (photo by Christian Santelices)

Dzong La Pass and Renjo Pass take us away west and once again the great brilliance of mountain passes is laid bare: what at once seems impassable, is, once ascended, a series of accessible pathways leading out, leading in, and leading onwards.

Atop Gokyo Ri, looking down at the Gokyo lakes and the Ngozumpa Glacier in the left. The glacier is the largest in Nepal.

What is clear when speaking to locals, and to those further ‘down’ from the mountains, is the need to care for the heights and not separate her influences from the wellbeing of spaces and people far away. It is all linked and connected, and as so many of the mountains have said and continue to say, “We cannot separate the elements from ourselves”. Never.

 

 

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