Much sipping, waiting, travelling, and finally contentment, has been put into creating a tea tour with Wild China where we will sip of the greens, the whites, the precious Puerhs and as many other teas as we can manage in between. A journey that begins next March spanning China’s famed southern tea belt, it will be nothing short of an odyssey of instruction and history as it applies to what was known once simply as ‘du’ or ‘bitter herb’.
A tea cultivator enjoys a tea high away from the precious leaves
An immersion into the fluid, the leaves themselves, and the personalities behind names like the famed (and much faked) Longjing, and ancient tree Puerh. How tea is produced, its history and a rampant bit of sampling at all hours of the day and night will be enjoyed.
From my adopted home in Yunnan, we’ll head east into the southeast of China, where Oolongs were born and shipped out by schooner, and where white buds now stir up trends.
Tea as a medicine, as a tonic, as a food and fuel, and tea in its most notable form: desiccated leaves unleashed by water, will all be looked at and sampled where possible. We’ll take in one of the ancient world’s great green commodities in tiny sips, and great heaving gulps.
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.
