Tag Archives: Jeff Fuchs
Tea Pot Travels – The 90 ml in Europe
The second selection is a 200 gram cake of Spring 2021 Naka old tree (100 + years). A bit of brilliance it is on the palate. Fresh and almost throbbing with ‘qi’, it counts among my ‘teas that cannot disappoint’. The region’s ability to provide random bits of sumptuous unbridled strength on the palate and in the blood isn’t always a given…but it usually is. It is one of the regions that, with careful hands and consistent raw materials, can provide an offering that satiates and restores my very core. It is too, a tea that can ‘cut’ through a palate of pungent cheese without a problem. I know this well as the two are frequent partners on my palate journeys. Continue reading
Omu, The Strong
Arriving to a new camp and homestead, Omu sets about going through an unending list of ‘musts’. One of the musts is securing tent ‘fly’ lines of twined yak wool, hammered into the high-altitude turf. Using a stone picked up … Continue reading
Dolma, the Titan
Over the course of a decade of repeated visits to a nomadic community and little Dolma’s clan near Litang, I would continuously be in awe of the ’nomadic ways’ of doing simply anything. Moving up to a half dozen times … Continue reading
Leaf Journeys, Leaf Ageing, and the Heights
It was upon the months’ long journeys along the Tea Horse Road that the big-leafed ‘assamica’ material and eternal panacea, tea, would transform and morph from a simple green tea into an almost compost-like blend that many Tibetans began to … Continue reading
A Tea Comes Around
The joy of a bit of time-hit leaf beauty. Age hasn’t always been something I’ve ever been convinced matters in any tea. Age of bushes, of trees, or even of the producer maybe, but age of the cake or how … Continue reading
Interview with Tea Biz – Tea’s Precious Informality
A few thoughts shared in a recent interview with Tea Biz here. In the great rush of tea paraphernalia and in the increasingly creative marketing and usage of fantastical descriptions and flavour wheels; in a time when the ‘names’ of … Continue reading
Tea Horse Road Chronicles – A lusty bit of Leaf Tribute
One of the most exquisite pieces of tea porn I’ve come ever across was this compressed mass of large leaf material, formed into seven gourds, sized in ever-descending size to form a large pyramid of vegetal fuel. It was also … Continue reading
A Snow Pass, The ‘Feel’, and Karma’s Chai
The mind wanders back to a mountain pass, a blizzard, and that wonderful thing that exists still: instinct. On a day of few words along a portion of a trade route in Ladakh as a blizzard piled in at 5000 … Continue reading
Tea Horse Road Chronicles – He Was Late
The horseman assured Sonam and our team that he would appear at 7am sharp the next morning. He promised over several cups of tea, and that was usually the sign of a deal that was done and agreed upon. The … Continue reading