Awagami Factory

Active washi paper mill in the Yoshinogawa valley, carrying forward a papermaking tradition that goes back over a thousand years in Tokushima. A tour of the facility shows the full process: soaking kozo bark, beating it into pulp, suspending it in water, then pulling sheets through a bamboo frame with a practiced wrist motion. You can try the sheet-pulling yourself and leave with a few pages you made by hand. The paper is used by artists and publishers internationally, and the mill store sells an impressive range of weights and textures.