The Ancient Tea Horse Road: Travels With the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers

by Jeff Fuchs

"If a cup of tea isn't offered, a relationship isn't offered." -Himalayan saying For thirteen centuries, one of the planet's most daunting journeys and most remarkable trade routes remained a mystery... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670066117
• ISBN13: 9780670066117
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Penguin Group Canada
• Length: 231 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent read - will read again

I read this book last year after my husband became acquainted with the author. At the time, I was hoping to learn something about the area that I would soon be moving to (I've been here 6 months now). What I got was an amazingly-written piece of travel writing that made me eager to move here a bit sooner! At the time, the people involved in the journey were just characters. Now that I've met most of them (Jeff, Dakpa, Dorje, Bhaskar) I want to read it again. Currently, I work for Dakpa, live below Jeff, eat Bhaskar's food, and wear a bracelet from Dorje's village. Had I known all of these people during the planning phase, I would have begged for the chance to accompany them. Read this book. If you like travel, mountains, and especially tea, Jeff's writing brings all of it to life.

A great literary tea adventure!!

Not only an adventure of geographies but also of a magnificent trade route and the people who live along it. Fascinating and engagingly written. I particularly like the emphasis on people and the descriptions of them and the landscapes. This is a tale of tea's great journey.

A Gripping True Story, Well Told

I read this book in one day on a long flight - no, I should say I inhaled this book because I enjoyed it so much. Indeed, the irony was not lost on me that here I was in various airports, flying about in streamline aircraft while reading about one of oldest and most dangerous Muleteer and Mule tea trading routes in southern China. I am in the tea business and have been to Yunnan, to some of the tea mountains described in this book. But certainly, very few people, other than the men who made their living plying tea and other trade goods back and forth across the Himalaya to Tibet over this hazardous, unforgiving narrow road of rock and stone, have ventured where this author went. Jeff Fuchs has done a remarkable job of bringing the reader into the region, the mountains, the remote wind-swept villages and the meager homes of some of the last living Muleteers to record their words and experiences. These are the places that can give even seasoned travelers nightmares. He weaves a well-constructed story that includes details relevant to a deeper understanding of the history of this place and the lives of those once involved in the Tea Horse Road: some Chinese history, some Chinese tea history, and much about the importance of the Pu-erh tea itself as a trade commodity between Yunnan and Tibet. As the story unfolded, I realized that this is the kind of story that amazes and educates us about the lives of people in far-off places. I particularly liked and appreciated that he spend quite a bit of time interviewing the old men who were former Muleteers, and that he chronicles how important the tea was then, and still is now, to those who live in remote Himalaya mountain villages. There is a thread of melancholy, saddness, tenderness and pride at a life well lived that comes through some of the different voices that appear in the book. As a reader, I gained an understand and great respect for those who willingly embraced this rugged, unforgiving lifestyle and why they did it. How strange it must be for them to see all of their sacrifices and the Tea Horse Route itself disappear as paved roads replace the need for brave men and sturdy mules to carry goods back and forth. I particularly like a sentence that appears on page 29. The author begins a new paragraph with the words: " Tea in the mountain villages had never been taken for granted partly because of the long journeys required to bring it there." This level of humble appreciation for a simple leaf is much of what this book is about, and what makes this story so powerful.

A great read for adventure, memoir, and tea lovers

"The Ancient Tea Horse Road" is an excellent read for people who love adventure trekking, written memoirs, cultural studies, and tea. Jeff Fuchs, the author, lives in China, so he knows the people and the territory well. The treks he writes about were all organized by himself, and he was the only westerner involved. The other participants where his Chinese and Tibetan friends and acquaintances, and their friends and relatives. Mostly nomads and mountain people. Jeff is a tea fanatic, and the book is flush with tea lore. It's an excellent primer for people interested in "authentic" Asian tea, as well as for those already well versed. Probably my favorite thing about the book is the casual, yet impassioned way he writes about the people involved in his treks, and the old mountain people he meets along the way. This book is as much about culture and anthropology as it is about mountains and valleys. Fuchs is clearly no interloper; not the kind of person who pays a big fee and gets lead around for a while and then flies home. No, he organized and lead the treks, and his concerns were to leave a small footprint, while meeting and interviewing the last of the old timers who used to travel the route as traders. There is a rich cultural history there, and it is dying out quickly. This book is about Fuch's quest to capture some of that history before it is gone, as well as to travel some rough roads and to drink an awful lot of tea.