Chuffed that our recent documentary “The Tea Explorer” just won a Silver World Award at this year’s 2018 New York Festivals International TV and Film awards in the History and Society category.
Interviewing a Tibetan tea trader who’s passions of the Tea Horse Road delighted as his memories became clearer. Part of our task of The Tea Explorer was to pay tribute to memories of the route that had seldom been written down.
Some gratitude to Canada’s own national broadcaster CBC’s Doc Channel for taking a plunge of telling a tale of a stimulant leaf, an ancient trade route through the Himalayas and a tea junkie.
Deep thanks too, to the fearless engine Andrew Gregg who directed conceived and pursued this project from the outset.
Lastly, a thank you to 90th Parallel Productions who produced this.
Disintegrating but elegant, the old castle in the ancient capital of Tsarang in Mustang, where our crew of The Tea Explorer happily bedded down.
The Tea Explorer journeys will continue to continue to document what is left of the memories of the great trade routes through the sky – all of course to be fuelled by tea.
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.
