Records in the Shōsōin documents indicate that the household registration forms used during the Nara period were made of MINO Washi (Papers), suggesting that the origins of MINO Washi (Papers) date back to the Nara period.
During the Muromachi period, the Toki clan, a powerful local family, opened a paper market called Rokusaiichi, which led to MINO Washi (Papers) being shipped to Kyoto, Osaka, and the Ise region, making it widely known.

• Technology/techniques/raw materials

  Technology/techniques/raw materials

  Technology/techniques

  1. Papermaking shall be carried out using the following techniques or methods:
  (1) Using the "flow-casting" method.
  (2) The mats used should be made of bamboo or gauze.
  (3) The paste should be made from either Abelmoschus manihot or Hydrangea paniculata.

  2. Drying shall be done by "board drying" or "iron plate drying".

   

  raw materials

  The main ingredients shall be paper mulberry, mitsumata, or ganpi.

• Work scene

  Work scene

  The general process for manufacturing washi paper involves drying the bark of raw materials such as mulberry, boiling it to extract the fibers, finely breaking them down, dissolving them in water, and then uniformly scooping them up with a papermaking tool called a sukote and drying them. In the case of MINO Washi (Papers), particular care is taken in removing the dust in step 4, and a unique Mino shaking technique called "yokoyuri" is used during the papermaking process in step 6, resulting in thin, strong, and beautiful washi paper considered to be of the highest quality.

  Step 1: Preparation of raw materials

  The raw materials for washi paper, such as "kozo (a shrub of the mulberry family; its thick, long fibers make strong paper; widely used for hosho paper, shoji paper, calligraphy paper, and crafts)," "mitsumata (a member of the Thymelaeaceae family; produces smooth, glossy paper; used for fusuma paper, printing paper, etc.)," and "ganpi (a member of the Thymelaeaceae family; its fine fibers produce thin, glossy paper)," are harvested in the autumn, the bark is stripped, and the leaves are dried.

  

  Step 2: River rinsing

  To dissolve water-soluble impurities in the raw material, the dried bark is soaked in flowing water, such as in a shallow river or aquarium, for 1 to 5 days.

  

  Step 3: Boiling

  To remove impurities that cannot be removed by simply letting the bark sit in the river and to soften the bark, the bark is placed in a pot that has been boiled with alkaline agents such as soda ash or caustic soda, and boiled for several hours. This process extracts only the fibers from the bark.

  

  Step 4: Dustpan

  After boiling and extracting the fibers, buds, nodes, hard parts, and debris are removed. This is a time-consuming process that can only be done by hand, but how carefully this debris removal is done greatly affects the final finish of the washi paper. The beauty of MINO Washi (Papers) is due to this meticulous debris removal process.

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  Step 5: Beating

  Place the dusted fibers on a stone slab and beat them with a wooden mallet. Beat the ball of fibers, which should weigh about 750g, with wooden mallets in both hands for about 10 minutes to break down the fibers into smaller pieces.

  

  Step 6: Papermaking

  This is the most important and technically demanding step in the washi papermaking process. First, finely loosened fibers are dissolved in water and thoroughly mixed with mucilage extracted from the roots of the hibiscus plant. Then, this liquid is scooped up using a tool called a sukote, which is a wooden frame with a mat stretched over it. By quickly shaking the scooped-up liquid back and forth and side to side, the paper fibers intertwine vertically and horizontally, resulting in thin yet strong paper. This side-to-side shaking is called "yokoyuri" and is a characteristic feature of MINO Washi (Papers).

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  工程7： 乾燥

  The freshly made paper is left soft overnight, and the next day it is gradually pressed to remove the water. Then each sheet is attached to a board and dried in the sun.

  

  工程8： 仕上げ

  After drying, each sheet of paper is carefully inspected before being cut to standard sizes and shipped. It takes approximately 10 days from raw material to finished paper, and out of 100% of the raw wood, only 4 percent becomes paper. MINO Washi (Papers) is made with carefully selected raw materials, with impurities such as dust and dirt removed multiple times, resulting in a meticulously crafted product.

  

   

• Close-up

  Close-up

  A Craftsman's Life Story: MINO Washi (Papers)- 50 Years

  A family register from 702 AD, written on MINO Washi (Papers) is preserved in the Shosoin Treasure House in Nara. It is said to be the oldest family register in Japan. For 1300 years, MINO Washi (Papers) has been known as a thin, strong, and beautiful top-quality paper. We spoke with Hidekazu Ishihara, who was born into a family of papermakers in Mino and has been making Mino washi as a craftsman for half a century.

   

  I keep being drawn back to paper

  "I actually wanted to become a teacher." After graduating from junior high school, he intended to go to high school, but his mother's illness led him to help with the family papermaking business. That was the start of Ishihara's career as a papermaker. Ishihara, a master craftsman specializing in particularly thin MINO Washi (Papers), known for its thinness, strength, and beauty, has had a life full of twists and turns in papermaking. In his early twenties, he went to Tokyo to try his hand at selling paper, but then his grandfather fell ill, and he returned to Mino. In his thirties, around 1965, he considered giving up papermaking and starting a plastics factory, which was experiencing a surge in demand at the time, but his clients begged him to continue. "I was often lost. It's only recently that I've stopped being lost. But whenever I try to go down another path, something always happens and I'm called back to paper. Sometimes I think that paper was the one that loved me," Ishihara says.

  

  Mr. Ishihara making paper using a bamboo mat.

  In the 1950s, everything that was produced sold.

  The Ishihara family has been papermaking for generations and is located in Kamino, a little way up into the mountains from the Itadori River, a tributary of the Nagara River. The area along the Itadori River has clean waters and abundant raw materials. Perhaps because there were no other livelihoods during the winter months, papermaking has always been particularly prosperous. When Ishihara started this work at the age of 15, everyone in the neighborhood was making paper. It was common for the son of a papermaker to take over the business, and many of his friends also became papermakers. He says that back then he would get up before 4 a.m. every morning to work, but he could sell as much as he made. It was a time when he earned more than a salaried worker.

  

  The secret to making thin yet strong paper is to quickly shake the bamboo mat back and forth and side to side.

  You can't even see their backs.

  At that time, each settlement generally had its own tendencies in production, such as focusing on thin paper or shoji paper, and Ueno, where Ishihara lived, was a district that produced a lot of thin paper. The paper that Ishihara had been making was also mainly very thin paper, which has been used for GIFU Chochin (Lanterns), which are designated as traditional crafts, and Ise katagami ISE Katagami (Paper Stencils) used in Yuzen dyeing.
  This story is about the time he was asked to make "hakuaishi" (a type of paper used to prevent finished gold leaf from sticking together) for Kanazawa KANAZAWA Haku (Gold Leafs). "It's a difficult paper to work with, and when I said, 'I'll do my best to catch up with my seniors as soon as possible,' they replied, 'What are you talking about? You've been way past their level for ages.'" He thought to himself, "Oh, so I still can't see my seniors' backs?" But the customer was telling him that Ishihara, who is only in his mid-40s, already has skills that surpass those of his seniors. "That made me so happy. It made me realize that if you work diligently and seriously, always thinking about your customers, things like this can happen."

  

  The freshly made paper is stacked one sheet at a time and left overnight.

  The demand for handmade Japanese paper has plummeted.

  I asked him a foolish question: "Do you find papermaking interesting?" He replied that he never thought about whether it was interesting or not, since it was just a job. "On the contrary, what was hardest was seeing everyone quit when paper sales declined." Since the high-growth period, sales of handmade Japanese paper have plummeted due to mechanization. At Mr. Ishihara's place, they used to make 20,000 sheets a month at their peak, but now it's only 2,000 sheets a month. Previously, everyone in the neighborhood was making paper, but now only about 20 households continue to make it, in Ueno and the neighboring villages of Warabi and Katachi combined. The population is also aging.

  

  Washi paper made by Mr. Ishihara. About 10 sheets are pasted together and used for Ise-katagami (Ise stencil paper).

  Paper is a material

  Fortunately, however, there are quite a few young people who aspire to become papermakers. Some even move to Mino from other prefectures, and currently, about 10 people are aiming to become craftsmen in Mino. "I tell those young people, don't try to be artists. Paper is a material, it's not a work of art in itself." He says there is no definition of "good paper." Good paper for shoji screens, good paper for stencils—"good paper" is different for each use. Paper is only "good paper" when the customer who uses it says it's "good." However, nowadays, the demand for washi is more for hobby use, such as for torn paper art, painting, and interior design, rather than for washi as a material. There was a time when handmade washi was used as a material and as part of industry, and it flourished. But it's different now. What should washi be like? This is a challenge for the young successors who will carry on its 1300-year history.

  Craftsman Profile

  ​Hidekazu Ishihara

  Born in 1935 (Showa 10). After graduating from junior high school, he began helping with the family papermaking business, and has been doing so for 50 years. He specializes in thin paper. Currently, as the chairman of the cooperative, he is also focusing on training successors.

  

  Hidekazu Ishihara. As you might expect from a local, he's a fan of the Chunichi Dragons.

  Anecdotes

  Let's make handmade postcards!

  While it doesn't come close to the thin yet durable MINO Washi (Papers), why not try your hand at handmade paper? You can easily do it at home using a milk carton and a commercially available papermaking kit (a postcard-sized frame and mesh). Let me show you how.

  1. Boil an open milk carton in a pot with soap to remove the laminate coating on the surface. After removing the laminate, wash the paper thoroughly to remove the soap residue, tear it into small pieces, and blend it with water in a blender until it becomes a paste. This is the raw material for paper.
  2. Place the mesh screen on the frame of the papermaking kit and pour in the raw materials. (This is papermaking.)
  3. Lift the mesh and place it on a towel, then cover it with another towel to remove excess water. Remove the mesh and iron it, and you're done.

  You can also incorporate leaves into the papermaking process or dissolve paints in it to create colored paper. It's also a great way to recycle milk cartons.