Hon-minoshi, the most exacting of Japan's hand-made papers: the town of Mino, the mulberry growers and the few makers left, one sheet made start to finish, and why 'rice paper' has no rice in it.
Washi is paper made by hand from the fibres of the paper mulberry, a shrub called kozo in Japanese. UNESCO's listing now covers papers from several parts of Japan. This page follows one of them, Hon-minoshi, from the city of Mino in Gifu Prefecture, in central Japan.
Mino lies in the valleys of the Nagara River, and its rivers give plenty of clean water, which papermaking needs a great deal of. Paper has been made there for more than 1,300 years. A household register written on Mino paper in 702 survives in the Shosoin repository in Nara, among the oldest surviving paper in Japan. In the Edo period Mino paper merchants supplied official paper to the shogunate.
In that same period Mino paper was rated the best paper for shoji, the paper screens and sliding doors of Japanese houses. Its top grade still goes into shoji today; those at the Kyoto State Guest House are covered with it. That top grade is Hon-minoshi, a name usually translated as genuine or authentic Mino paper, because it keeps strictly to traditional materials and methods. The sheets are light, thin enough to be translucent, soft and yet strong. Japan designated the technique an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1969, naming the Hon-minoshi preservation association, formed in the 1960s, as its holding group. Today its main uses are shoji and the repair of cultural properties.
Rules, growers and makers
Hon-minoshi's standards are written down. Sheets are formed by nagashizuki, rocking a bamboo screen, and dried in the sun on boards. The paper is made in Mino by members of the preservation association, and it uses only kozo, while some other Mino hand-made papers use other plant fibres. The bark comes from kozo grown in Ibaraki, north-east of Tokyo, around the town of Daigo. Farmers there grow it, and it is sold as Nasu kozo, prized for its long, fine fibres. The shrubs are cut back every year, in the cold months, and the stumps send up new branches for the next harvest.
Papermaking is traditionally winter work, and the cold helps. Cold running water helps wash the fibres clean, and the cold helps the plant materials keep without rotting.
Gifu Prefecture counts six members of the Hon-minoshi association working from five workshops, with about ten trainees and apprentices. Skills pass down in families, and the association also trains apprentices, with public money going toward training. Learning to form a sheet well takes years.
One sheet, start to finish
A sheet starts with kozo branches, bundled and steamed for well over an hour to loosen the bark, which is peeled by hand while still soft. The dark outer bark is removed and only the pale inner bark kept. That white bark is soaked in cold running water, traditionally in a river, then boiled in an alkaline solution until the fibres soften. Next the fibres are picked over by hand to remove dark bark, scars and grit, which gives Hon-minoshi its clean look, with only kozo fibre left. They are beaten with wooden mallets, or a machine built for the job, until they separate into strands.
Meanwhile the root of tororo-aoi, a kind of hibiscus, is pounded and soaked to give a thick, slippery liquid. The papermaker fills a vat with water, adds the fibres and this liquid, and mixes them. The liquid keeps the fibres apart and slows the water draining through the screen, a fine bamboo mat held in a wooden frame that hangs from above the vat so it can be swung.
First comes a quick, shallow scoop, tipped off at once, which lays a thin film that becomes the smooth face of the sheet. Then come deeper scoops and rocking, front to back and, in Mino, side to side as well, so the fibres cross both ways. This is repeated until the sheet is thick enough, and a final toss throws the surplus off the far end. Wet sheets are stacked directly on one another with no cloth between, because the slippery liquid lets them separate later. The stack is pressed for hours, then each sheet is peeled off, brushed onto a wooden board and dried in the sun. Held up to sunlight, a finished sheet shows its fibres interlaced neatly, lengthwise and crosswise.
Why it is on the list
Japan first nominated Hon-minoshi on its own in 2011. UNESCO's committee found it closely resembled Sekishu-banshi, a paper from Shimane listed in 2009, and referred it back. Japan returned with one shared entry, and in 2014 washi was inscribed on the Representative List as a single craft covering three papers: Sekishu-banshi, Hon-minoshi and Hosokawa-shi from Saitama. The committee pointed to skills handed down through families, preservation associations and municipalities, giving people a sense of identity. In 2025 the listing grew to add Echizen torinoko paper from Fukui, and that decision praised a craft carried on without over-harvesting the plants it uses.
Not made from rice
In English, Japanese paper is often called rice paper, though it is not made from rice. Hon-minoshi is made of long, fine bark fibre and is light but strong, and conservators use it to repair old documents, books and works of art.
Hold a sheet of Hon-minoshi up to the sun, and its fibres show as an orderly mesh, laid lengthwise and crosswise. Each one began as the inner bark of a mulberry branch, cut in winter in Ibaraki, in another part of Japan.
This is Ours to Keep. I'm Mira, and today: washi, Japanese hand-made paper. I'm an AI voice; the facts come from official records and checked sources.
A paper town on the Nagara
Washi is paper made by hand from the bark of the paper mulberry, a shrub the Japanese call kozo. It is used for letters, books and documents, and for screens and sliding doors at home. UNESCO's listing covers papers from several parts of Japan. This episode stays with one of them, Hon-minoshi, from the city of Mino in Gifu Prefecture, in central Japan.
Mino lies in the valleys of the Nagara River. Its rivers give the town plenty of clean water, and papermaking needs a great deal of it. Paper has been made here for more than thirteen hundred years. A household register written on Mino paper in the year 702 still survives in the Shosoin repository in Nara. It is among the oldest surviving paper in Japan. Over the centuries, Mino paper carried hand-copied texts and official records. Later, in the Middle Ages, paper markets were held at Oyada, which is now part of Mino.
In the Edo period, Mino paper merchants supplied official paper to the shogun's government, and Mino paper was rated the best shoji paper in the country. Shoji are the paper screens and sliding doors of Japanese houses, and the top grade of Mino paper still goes into them today. The shoji at the Kyoto State Guest House are covered with it.
That top grade is Hon-minoshi. The name is usually translated as genuine, or authentic, Mino paper, because it keeps strictly to the old materials and methods. The sheets are light and thin enough to let light through, soft to the touch and yet strong. Japan designated the technique an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1969, and named the Hon-minoshi preservation association, formed in the 1960s, as the group that holds it. Today its main uses are shoji and the repair of cultural treasures.
The rules of true Mino paper
The standards for Hon-minoshi are written down. The sheets must be formed by nagashizuki, a method of rocking a bamboo screen, and dried in the sun on wooden boards. The paper must be made in Mino, by members of the preservation association. And the bark must come only from mulberry grown in Ibaraki, around the town of Daigo, north-east of Tokyo.
So the paper begins in another prefecture altogether. Ibaraki mulberry is prized for its long, fine fibres, and it is sold under the name Nasu kozo. Farmers there grow it. The shrubs are cut back every year, and the stumps send up new branches for the next harvest. The cutting happens in the cold months, and papermaking itself is traditionally winter work.
The cold helps in practical ways. Icy running water helps wash the fibres clean, and the plant materials keep longer without rotting. Even the raw materials have their researchers. Institutes run by Gifu Prefecture study them, from the mulberry to the hibiscus root that goes into the vat.
Who makes it now
Mino makes other hand-made papers too, in fewer than twenty workshops in all. Some of those papers use other plant fibres. Hon-minoshi uses only mulberry, and only a few people are allowed to make it. Gifu Prefecture counts six members of the preservation association, working from five workshops. Around them are about ten trainees and apprentices.
The skills pass down in families. UNESCO's record describes masters who learned the work from their own parents, and who now teach family members and employees in turn. The association also trains apprentices and gives them technical guidance. The safeguarding work also covers quality checks, securing materials and tools, and research into the technique itself. Public money helps: the national government, Gifu Prefecture and the city of Mino all put funds toward training.
Learning takes years. Trainees learn under the masters, alongside the association's members. A papermaker has to judge the thickness of a sheet while it is still forming, and masters say that forming a sheet well takes years to learn.
The craft also depends on people outside the workshops. Specialists make the bamboo screens, frames and other tools, and their training is supported too. Mino keeps a museum devoted to those tools, with the screens, mallets and baskets the work relies on. UNESCO's record says most people in the practising communities take some part, from growing mulberry to designing new paper products.
One sheet, start to finish
One sheet of Hon-minoshi starts in a mulberry field in winter. The cut branches are bundled and steamed for well over an hour, until the bark loosens. The bark is peeled off by hand while it is still soft. The dark outer layer is removed, and only the pale inner bark is kept.
That white bark is soaked in cold running water, traditionally in a river. Next it is boiled in an alkaline solution until the fibres soften. Then the fibres are picked over by hand, piece by piece. Any dark bark, scars or grit are lifted out. This step gives Hon-minoshi its clean look, with nothing left in it but mulberry fibre. After that, the clean fibres are beaten with wooden mallets, or with a machine built for the job, until they come apart into separate strands.
Meanwhile, the root of the tororo-aoi, a kind of hibiscus, is pounded and soaked in water. It gives a thick, slippery liquid. The papermaker fills a vat with water, adds the fibres and the slippery liquid, and mixes them. The liquid keeps the fibres floating apart, and it slows the water as it drains through the screen.
The screen is a fine bamboo mat held in a wooden frame, both made by specialist craftsmen. The frame hangs from above the vat, so the papermaker can swing it. First comes a quick, shallow scoop, tipped off at once. It lays a thin film of fibres that becomes the smooth face of the sheet. Then come deeper scoops, and the rocking. The frame swings front to back, and in Mino it also swings from side to side, so the fibres cross in both directions. This is repeated several times, until the sheet is thick enough. A final toss throws the surplus off the far end of the screen, and loose clumps and floating dirt go with it.
The wet sheet is laid straight onto the sheets made before it. In other papermaking methods, cloth goes between wet sheets to keep them apart. Here, nothing does. The slippery liquid is what lets them come apart later. The stack is pressed for hours to squeeze out the water. Then each sheet is peeled off on its own, brushed flat onto a wooden board, and set in the sun to dry. Held to the light, it shows the mesh those two directions of rocking made.
Why it's on the list
So why is it on the list? The listing took two attempts. In 2011, Japan nominated Hon-minoshi on its own. UNESCO's committee found that it closely resembled Sekishu-banshi, a paper from Shimane listed in 2009, and sent the file back. Japan returned with one shared entry.
In 2014, washi was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List as a single craft covering three papers. They are Sekishu-banshi from Misumi in Hamada, Hon-minoshi from Mino, and Hosokawa-shi from Ogawa and Higashichichibu in Saitama. The committee pointed to how the skills pass down through families, preservation associations and local towns, giving people a sense of identity and holding communities together. It also expected the listing to raise awareness of living heritage more widely. It noted plans for training, school demonstrations, mulberry planting and washi in modern design. All three techniques were already protected as Important Intangible Cultural Properties in Japan. In 2025 the listing grew again, adding Echizen torinoko paper from Fukui. That decision praised a craft made without over-harvesting its plants, and one that emphasises the role of women. The committee also commended Japan for including the communities in that file with care.
The surprise
In English, Japanese paper is often called rice paper. There is no rice in Hon-minoshi. UNESCO's record names the fibre plainly: paper mulberry. It is made of long, fine bark fibre, and those fibres make it light but strong. That strength gives it a second use, far from any shoji. Conservators use Hon-minoshi to repair old documents, books and works of art. Thin Japanese mulberry paper is used the same way by museums and archives abroad, to mend torn pages and old books.
Tomorrow, mulberry of another kind: the villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, where people in steep thatched farmhouses lived by growing mulberry trees and raising silkworms.
