Xiangyunsha
Xiangyunsha — Trade name for mulberry silk finished by repeated yam-tuber soaks, sun drying and a coat of iron-rich river mud, made in the Pearl River Delta. In export paperwork the same cloth is usually called gambiered silk, and the two names should not be used for two different fabrics.
Sha (open gauze)
Sha (open gauze) — The open-weave branch: a mulberry gauze whose interlacing stays visible after the finish, so light and air pass through. Two faces differ in shade, and the cloth reads dry rather than shiny.
Chou (closed satin)
Chou (closed satin) — The closed-weave branch, usually thrown on a crepe-back satin. The mud black sits on the satin face as a low, hard sheen while the reverse keeps a matte grain, which is why a garment made from it must be laid one way.
Yam tuber (Dioscorea)
Yam tuber (Dioscorea) — The tuber whose pressed juice supplies the tannin. It is not a dye pot: cloth is soaked and dried many times, and the tannin builds up in layers on the yarn, which is why the process takes weeks rather than a day.
Yam liquor
Yam liquor — The soaking bath itself. Its strength falls as the bath is used, so a mill keeps a fresh bath for the deeper shades and lets the weaker one finish lighter goods; the bath history is part of why two lots differ.
Mud coating
Mud coating — The step where river mud is brushed on the soaked cloth and then washed off. Iron in the mud reacts with the tannin to make the black; the mud is a reactant, not a pigment, which is why the colour only appears where both were present.
Sun drying
Sun drying — Each soak is dried outdoors on grass or racks, so weather is inside the process. Rain mid-dry, a run of grey days or a heat spike all move the shade, and a supplier who cannot say when a lot was dried cannot explain its colour.
Two faces (mud side, brown side)
Two faces (mud side, brown side) — The mud side is a deep black-brown; the face under it stays amber-brown. Both are finished surfaces of the same cloth, so a style that shows the inside is a design decision, not a fault. Mixing faces inside one garment is the fault.
Soft gold (trade nickname)
Soft gold (trade nickname) — A marketing nickname used in Chinese-language trade for this cloth because of the labour per metre. It is not a grade, not a certification and not a price basis; treat it as colour in an advertisement, not as a specification line.
Lot number
Lot number — The only reliable way to keep colour consistent across two production runs: it identifies one dyeing day and one bath history. A lot number on the packing list is what lets a second order be matched, disputed, or deliberately shifted a shade.
Base cloth
Base cloth — The greige mulberry cloth before the gambiering: gauze, crepe-back satin, double crepe or habotai. The base sets weight, light and drape; the finish sits on top of those, so two cloths with the same finish can behave completely differently.
What this list is for
A buyer and a mill usually fail to agree because they use the same word for two different things. Each entry below fixes one word to one thing, and says what to check if a supplier uses it differently.