This past Wednesday I participated in another Shanghai and Beyond tour. This one was a whole day on sericulture – silkworm farming.
We visited a silk bedding factory, a family that raises the worms and then a mulberry orchard.
I realized how little I knew about silk!
Did you know that silkworms are blind?
That 8000 cocoons are needed to created 3lbs of silk floss?
That this type of silkworm only eats mulberry leaves?
That there is a Spring and Fall season? And that the Spring silk is more expensive because the worms have less predators in the Spring, thus producing stronger silk?
It was a great day with great people!
Michael and the factory owner.
Aren’t they cute!
The owner’s home whete we had lunch
Examples of the cocoons
Spreding out the silk to make a duvet
Quite odd – in the bathhroom they had a turtle and some eels. Maybe for dinner?
