Japanese stationery chosen for how it takes ink.
by Yuki Tanabe·🇯🇵Kyoto, Japan
Photographs of mail sent by Kyoto Paper Monthly
A monthly envelope of Japanese stationery selected around a single quality: how it behaves under a fountain pen. Each month holds letter paper from a specific mill, matched envelopes, one sheet of washi, and a test card showing how three inks feather, shade and show through on that month's paper. Papers come from small mills in Kyoto, Fukui and Kochi prefecture, most of which have no export business at all.
One per calendar month, from the creator
August 2026 · just now
This month's paper comes from a mill in Kochi prefecture that will stop production in March. The owner is 78 and there is no successor. This is not unusual — it is happening to most of them.
I bought what I could. August subscribers get the last of it, and I have written the mill's history on the card because in a year there will be no other record of it in English.
What went out, month by month
Mulberry-fibre paper from a mill in Fukui operating since 1871. Almost no feathering.
The new formulation, tested honestly against the old. It is not the same and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Translucent, expensive, difficult, extraordinary. Two sheets only this month.
Letter paper with a printed sakura border, plus envelopes lined in the same.
🇳🇱Utrecht, Netherlands
Journaling • Stationery • Letters
From €11/month≈ $12
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🇮🇳Jaipur, India
Prints • Art • Stationery
From ₹650/month≈ $7.80
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🇺🇸Brooklyn, United States
Prints • Stationery • Poetry
From $18/month
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From ¥2,400/month
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