Jeff Fuchs has spent a large part of the last ten years travelling and living in Asia – his fascination with indigenous people has led into a passion and love for tea. Jeff has documented his travels along the ancient tea trade route – 6,000km over 7 months – in his beautiful book – The Ancient Tea Horse Road. We are very fortunate to have Jeff contribute to our blog as well as appear as a guest on Saturday October 17th to speak of his travels. This is the first part of a two part piece Jeff has written for us.
Long considered a panacea for life, tea’s status in Asia has been vital and unquestioned for centuries. For all of the whimsy and legend associated with tea at times tea leaves, their harvesting, preparation and consumption have always been essentially simple. It is perhaps because of this inherent simplicity that tea’s timeless potency has endured. This ‘tea truth’ can find no more loyal bastion of geography than in one of the original birthplaces of tea – a subtropical strip of lush forests, overwhelming heat and a land that can claim over two-thousand years of unending harvest, worship and consumption: the southwestern corner of Yunnan province. In the days of the Ancient Tea Horse Road the famed Tibetan traders referred to this landscape simply as Jiayul or ‘tea country’. A land whose relatively unchanged methods and adoration exists still.
Ancient tea trees, (adoringly called gu shu in China) and their massive trunks and branches cut the muddy path in front of us into segments…tea here grows on trees that explode for metres in every direction. It is literally an all-consuming forest of tea. A lean and wiry guide from the local Hani tribe smoothly eases his way through a sopping forest of rain and humid air – we are treading back to his home after visiting a precious tea forest of ‘ancients’ – tea trees that have remained happily secluded (and productive) for centuries. Centuries old trees make way to tea trees that are over a thousand years old; forests tended by and fawned over by successive generations of Hani people who have lived in these mountains side by side with their precious green commodity for as long as anyone cares to remember. The tribes of southern Yunnan refer to tea as a part of the culture, a part of the very soul of the place. Tea and its consumption here are ‘all of the time’.
Voyaging down to this region is a kind of ‘back to basics’ journey in relation to tea. Deep in the rumpled Nannuo Mountains this area is one extended tea landscape that flows and blankets for kilometers. Rice and corn stand in isolated enclaves – tea is the unquestioned green ruler of the land. Production methods, harvesting techniques and tea’s preparation have changed very little in this corner of the world and in a kind of homage to this fact the teas that are produced here are some of the most exclusive and valued teas on the globe. For all of the talk of a tea’s ‘vintage’, the fuss of its colour designation and its complexities in the mouth, tea from this region is easily identifiable by it’s simple requirements of preparation and its ‘bitter-sweet’ assault on the palate.
Padding down from our 1500 metre perches in the tea mountains, I am re-entering the town that we had set off from hours earlier that day with my understated host and guide, Ren. He glides through the lush wet forests seems as he leads me to his simple thatched home (and the inevitable tea within) that we are making our way towards. (TO BE CONTINUED)
It looks a little wacky – but there’s something about the simplicity and the ostrich like legs of this teahouse that is intriguingly beautiful. Terunobu Fujimori is a well known Japanese architect who decided to build a teahouse for himself on a piece of property he owns. Now traditionally, teahouses are not built using designers or architects as they are meant to be simple and not appear ostentatious. Keeping to those principals, Fujimori built a humble teahouse with no pomp or circumstance. The result is the finest simplicity and someplace we would love to have a cup of tea.
Fujimori constructed the teahouse ontop of two chestnut trees. To enter the teahouse, guests must climb a free-standing ladder and remove their shoes on a platform before completing the climb.
The interior is small and compact, as teahouses tend to be – four and a half tatami mats – which is about 29 square feet and is made of plaster and bamboo.
Fujimori describes the building as “…it were an extension of one’s body like a piece of clothing”
More entries for the ‘Calma-Sutra of Tea Scholarship’. We can’t get enough of these.
We listened to this talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert – author of Eat, Pray, Love at the TED conference in February and were deeply moved by her words – her sentiment and her approach. She speaks of the anguish, the suffering of the artist and how we have all come to accept that as the plight of the artist. She however refuses, and takes us back to ancient times where we spoke of artists having a genius rather than being a genius – removing the burden on feeling like we don’t measure up. She acknowledges the genius, the light, the divinity – which reminded us of the sentiment of Namaste which we wrote about recently. It all came full circle for us – and hope you enjoy it as much we did.
Anyone who has attended a yoga class has said the words or had the words spoken to them – Namaste. It feels peaceful, it sounds peaceful and it has a beautiful aura to it – but what does it mean. Namaste, Namaskara, Namaskaram is a Sanskrit word and it is essentially a greeting. The words are always spoken holding the hands within a prayer position in front of your chest and slightly bowing your head. Loosely translated, it means ‘I bow to the divinity/light that is within you’. What a beautiful sentiment. We greet eachother – friends, colleagues, strangers, each and every day – we say hello in passing without thinking perhaps about the person in front of us – the soul, the light. And there it is – one single word to wrap up the acknowledgement of the light within you, the light within me.
The next time you see someone and greet them – think the word – even if you don’t say it – be conscious of it – it will make you smile and it may make you look at the person in front of you a little deeper.
- Namaste –
