Tosa Washi

Thin as a feather

Tosa's most famous paper is tengujo-shi: at 0.03 mm, said to be the world's thinnest hand-made washi, yet it can be crumpled without tearing and spreads flat again. It once went abroad as typewriter stencil paper. Tosa has everything for washi locally, from fibre plants to tools and skills, and each house makes its own kind of paper, so the variety is huge. It is made in Nankoku, Tosa, Ino, Tsuno and other towns in Kochi.

Down to 4%

• Soil and sand are removed from the bark, which is boiled, washed, bleached, cleaned of specks and beaten.
• Tororo-aoi mucilage is added to the fibre in water.
• Tengujo-shi is made on a screen of ultra-fine bamboo strips woven with silk thread and covered with silk gauze, from 100% kozo.
• So much is removed to purify the fibre that less than 4% of the raw material ends up in the paper; a maker forms about 100 sheets a day.

Yoshii Genta

Tosa washi appears as tribute in the Heian-period Engishiki. In the Edo period Tosa's seven-colour paper was presented to the shogunate, and by the mid-Meiji era Tosa was Japan's biggest producer. Yoshii Genta of Ino improved papermaking tools from the late Edo to early Meiji years and devised tengujo-shi, spreading hand-made washi worldwide. At the Google Maps いの町紙の博物館 (opens in a new tab)Show map you can buy hand-made washi and try making paper.