Echizen Washi

A Living National Treasure, Ichibei Iwano, is the ninth generation of the Iwano. When I visited his studio with an American visitor, his son, Jyun'ichi was washing kozo materials after they were beaten enough both by hands and by machine. 

It's a very important process to do. 

The cloth he uses is made from cotton. And this cloth doesn't allow the long fiber to go out. His paper only needs to be made by long fiber. It  is also to bleach materials naturally white by washing with natural water from wells. Only one well is not enough ! It takes about thirty minutes to wash those materials.

Next to this place, his mother was rinsing the very raw materials cooked with soda ash using old water from the process her son does.