Blanket yak hair

Yak hair is ideal for making very light, yet incredibly warm blankets, because the hair is light and soft, yet very strong. Yaks, which are related to cattle, have a multi-layered and particularly dense coat. Only the fine undercoat, one of the finest and softest of natural coats, can be made into fine yak yarn. When spun, it is very much like cashmere. This blanket is woven from pure, undyed yak hair. Undyed and unbleached, this is the natural brown of the yak hair, and, with a fibre fineness of between 18.5 and 21 microns is extremely fine and soft. After weaving, both sides are machine-buffed and edged with blanket stitch in red. The blanket is made in Germany.

Yaks live mainly on mountain pastures at altitudes of between 3,000 and 4,000 metres in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China, and Mongolia. Because of their ability to adapt to the cold, high altitudes and low atmospheric pressure, they can even be found in the Tibetan Highlands as high as 6,000 metres. For the Asian nomadic peoples, yaks, which weigh up to 400 kilogrammes, are the basis of life. They supply milk, meat, wool and leather, and their dried dung is used as fuel for fires. More importantly, at high altitudes, the "grunting oxen" (Carl von Linné designated the domestic yak as Bos grunniens in 1766 because of the incessantly audible animal sounds the yaks are prone to give) are the solely remaining animals which can be used as riding or pack animals. In one year, a yak can only supply between 400 and 600 grammes of the fine undercoat, obtained in spring when the nomadic shepherds comb the young animals.