The last thing on Geru Drolma’s mind was becoming an internet celebrity. All she wanted was to make rent.
But the steamed buns Drolma rose at 5 a.m. each morning to make in her village in western China’s Sichuan province just weren’t selling fast enough. So with the bills mounting up, Drolma set off to hunt for wild fungi she hoped to sell at the local market, following the same azalea-strewn mountain paths carved by generations of her fellow ethnic Tibetans before her.
Finding the best fungi varieties—like the sought-after matsutake, or pine mushroom—is not easy. The finest specimens only grow around the roots of pine trees from August to September at an elevation above 13,000 feet. But Drolma grew up foraging on the frigid Tibetan Plateau, and was well-trained by her father how to spot that telltale bulge of the earth, the loosened topsoil, which betrays a fattened mushroom ripe for picking.
“Matsutakes can only be found by experienced people,” Drolma, 22, tells TIME, adding with ..