Minecraft Trails & Tales Update Explained: Sniffer, Camel, Archaeology and Cherry Blossoms
The Trails & Tales update added the sniffer, a full archaeology system, the camel mount and the cherry blossom biome to Minecraft, and it's still part of every current Java and Bedrock release. Here's exactly how each feature works and where to find it.
The Trails & Tales update is the reason your desert villages have camels standing in the town square, your taiga ruins are full of buried pottery, and a pink-leaved biome keeps showing up on your mountain hikes. Officially released as Java Edition 1.20 and Bedrock Edition 1.20.0 on June 7, 2023, Trails & Tales is still the foundation of modern Minecraft's exploration loop, and every Java and Bedrock release since has shipped with it built in. Here is exactly what it added, how each feature actually works, and where to find everything.
1. What Is the Trails & Tales Update?
Trails & Tales was first teased at Minecraft Live 2022 and officially named a few months later on the Minecraft Monthly show. Mojang built the update around a theme of storytelling and self-expression, and it landed around four major pillars: the sniffer (the mob players voted back from extinction at Minecraft Live 2022), a full archaeology system built around a new brush tool, the camel as a new desert mount, and the cherry blossom biome with its own wood set. Smaller additions filled in the rest, from chiseled bookshelves to armor trims.
The update was first properly detailed during Mojang's annual showcase. Here's the original Minecraft Live 2022 segment where the 1.20 update and its features were unveiled:
2. The Sniffer: Minecraft's First Mob Vote Revival
The sniffer won the 2022 Minecraft Live mob vote, beating out the rascal and the tuff golem, and it became the first mob vote winner based on an ancient, extinct creature rather than a brand-new design. You cannot tame or breed a sniffer from scratch — you have to hatch one from a sniffer egg, which is found by brushing suspicious sand in warm ocean ruins. The egg needs to sit on a block, ideally moss, before it will hatch into a baby sniffer.
Once grown, a sniffer will dig up ancient seeds from the ground: either a Torchflower Seed or a Pitcher Pod, both of which were otherwise unobtainable before this update. Plant a Torchflower Seed on farmland and it grows into a Torchflower, a purely decorative crop. A Pitcher Pod grows into a two-block-tall Pitcher Plant, which can be eaten as a food crop. Feed two adult sniffers Torchflower Seeds to breed them and hatch more eggs without having to go hunting through ocean ruins again.
3. Archaeology: Brushes, Suspicious Sand and Decorated Pots
Archaeology is the update's biggest new system. Craft a Brush from a stick, a feather and a copper ingot, then use it on suspicious sand or suspicious gravel blocks to slowly reveal buried items instead of just mining the block away. Suspicious sand and gravel turn up in desert temples, warm ocean ruins, desert wells, and in Trail Ruins — a new underground structure the update added specifically to give archaeology somewhere to live, generating in taiga, snowy taiga, savanna, and other temperate and cold biomes.
Brushing can turn up pottery sherds, each stamped with a different pattern (an arms-crossed figure, an archer, a skull, a prize and more). Combine four sherds — or three sherds plus a brick for a blank side — in a crafting grid to build a decorated pot, a purely cosmetic storage-adjacent block whose sides show whichever patterns you used. Archaeology sites are also where several smithing templates turned up for the first time, including the ones used to apply armor trims; if you want the full list of patterns and materials, walkthroughs.net has a dedicated armor trims pattern and material breakdown that covers every template Trails & Tales and later updates introduced.
4. The Camel: A New Desert Mount
Every non-abandoned desert village now generates with a persistent camel standing somewhere near its center, and camels can occasionally be found elsewhere in desert biomes too. Camels are unique among Minecraft's rideable mobs because a single saddle lets two players ride at once — one steering, one along for the trip. They're also noticeably taller than horses or donkeys, which means they can step over fences and other players without taking fall or contact damage along the way.
Sprinting while mounted charges up a dash, a short burst of forward speed useful for crossing gaps, ravines or just covering desert distances faster than on foot. If you're taming one for the first time, it's worth stocking up on supplies at the same desert settlement — walkthroughs.net's guide to villager trading professions and the best trades to look for covers how to get the most out of a desert village's trading hall while you're there.
5. Cherry Blossom Biome and the New Wood Set
The cherry grove biome generates at higher elevations, typically bordering mountain biomes, and is covered in pink-leaved cherry trees, pink petal decorations drifting across the ground, and bees that treat it as just another place to pollinate. It's one of the most visually distinct biomes in the game, and it came with its own complete wood set — cherry planks, logs, stairs, slabs, doors, trapdoors, fences, signs and boats — giving builders a pink-toned wood option that didn't exist before 1.20.
6. Smaller Additions Worth Knowing
Chiseled Bookshelf
The chiseled bookshelf can hold up to six books — written books, enchanted books, or regular books — displayed on its front face, and it outputs a redstone comparator signal based on how many slots are filled. It's a handy storage and decoration piece for anyone building out a library, and it pairs naturally with a dedicated enchanting table and bookshelf setup if you're optimizing a whole enchanting room rather than just displaying books.
Hanging Signs
Crafted from any wood type's stripped logs plus chains, hanging signs attach below a block instead of standing on top of one, and come in both wall and ceiling variants with their own text editing options.
Bamboo Wood Set
Bamboo got a full wood-equivalent set for the first time, including bamboo planks, doors, fences, signs, and both a bamboo boat and a bamboo chest boat.
New Painting Variants and Mob Vote Legacy
Trails & Tales also added several new painting variants to decorate with, continuing the update's storytelling theme.
7. How to Get the Trails & Tales Update Today
There's nothing left to download separately — Trails & Tales has been part of every standard Java and Bedrock release since June 7, 2023, so simply updating Minecraft through the official launcher, the Microsoft Store, or your console's update system gets you everything covered here. If you're not sure which version you're on, check the title screen or settings menu; anything at or above Java 1.20 / Bedrock 1.20.0 includes the full update.
Quick recap: hatch a sniffer egg from warm ocean ruins to grow Torchflowers and Pitcher Plants, craft a brush to dig pottery sherds and smithing templates out of suspicious sand and gravel, tame a camel at a desert village for a two-player dash-capable mount, and look for cherry groves near mountains if you want pink wood and a scenic base. For more on what's changed in Minecraft since, browse the full Minecraft walkthrough and guide archive on walkthroughs.net.
Official Resources