Rice paper

Rice paper usually refers to paper made from parts of the rice plant, like rice straw or rice flour. The term is also used for paper made from or containing other plants, such as hemp, bamboo or mulberry. Rice paper has been used for centuries in Vietnam, Korea, China and Japan for writing and artwork.

Rice paper plant

In Europe, around the 1900s, a paperlike substance was originally known as rice paper, due to the mistaken notion that it is made from rice. In fact, it consists of the pith of a small tree, Tetrapanax papyrifer, the rice paper plant.

The plant grows in the swampy forests of Taiwan, and is also cultivated as an ornamental plant for its large, exotic leaves. In order to produce the paper, the boughs are boiled and freed from bark. The cylindrical core of pith is rolled on a hard flat surface against a knife, by which it is cut into thin sheets of a fine ivory-like texture.

Dyed in various colors, this rice paper is extensively used for the preparation of artificial flowers, while the white sheets are employed for watercolor drawings. Due to its texture this paper is not suited for writing.^{[citation needed]}

Mulberry paper

Neko Chigura a kind of cat house made of rice straw.

This "Rice paper", smooth, thin, crackly, and strong, is named as a wrapper for rice, and is made from bark fibers of the mulberry tree. It is used for origami, calligraphy, paper screens and clothing. It is stronger than commercially made wood-pulp paper. Less commonly the paper is made from rice straw.

Depending on the type of mulberry used, it is named kozo (Broussonetia papyrifera, the paper mulberry), gampi (Wikstroemia diplomorpha), or mitsumata (Edgeworthia chrysantha). The fiber comes from the bark of the mulberry, not the inner wood or pith, and traditionally the paper is made by hand.

The branches of the mulberry shrubs are harvested in the fall, so the fiber can be processed and the paper formed during the cold winter months, because the fiber spoils easily in the heat. The branches are cut into sections two to three feet long and steamed in a large kettle, which makes the bark shrink back from the inner wood, allowing it to be pulled off like a banana peel. The bark can then be dried and stored, or used immediately. There are three layers to the bark at this stage: black bark, the outermost layer; green bark, the middle layer; and white bark, the innermost layer. All three can be made into paper, but the finest paper is made of white bark only.

If the bark strips have been dried, they are soaked in water overnight before being processed further. To clean the black and green bark from the white bark, the bark strip is spread on a board and scraped with a flat knife. Any knots or tough spots in the fiber are cut out and discarded at this stage.

The scraped bark strips are then cooked for two or three hours in a mixture of water and soda ash. The fiber is cooked enough when it can easily be pulled apart lengthwise. The strips are then rinsed several times in clean water to rinse off the soda ash. Rinsing also makes the fiber brighter and whiter—fine kozo paper is not bleached, it is naturally pure white.

Each bark strip is then inspected by hand, against a white background or lit from behind by a lightbox. Any tiny pieces of black bark and other debris are removed with tweezers, and any knots or tough patches of fiber missed during scraping are cut out of the strips. The ultimate goal is to have completely pure white bark.

The scraped, cooked, and cleaned strips are then laid out on a table and beaten by hand. The beating tool is a wooden bat that looks like a thicker version of a cricket bat. The fibers are beaten for about half an hour, or until all the fibers have been separated and no longer resemble strips of bark.

The prepared fiber can now be made into sheets of paper. A viscous substance called formation aid is added to the vat with the fiber and water. Formation aid is polyethylene oxide, and it helps slow the flow of water, which gives the papermaker more time to form sheets. Sheets are formed with multiple thin layers of fiber, one on top of another.

Edible paper

Rice paper

Edible rice paper is used for making fresh summer rolls (salad rolls) or fried spring rolls in Vietnamese cuisine, where the rice paper is called bánh tráng or bánh đa nem. Ingredients of the food rice paper include white rice flour, tapioca flour, salt, and water. The tapioca powder makes the rice paper glutinous and smooth. It is usually sold dried in thin, crisp, translucent round sheets that are wrapped in cellophane. The sheets are dipped briefly in hot water to soften them, then wrapped around savory or sweet ingredients.

In the UK, edible paper is used in home baking of foods such as macaroons.

Rice straw paper

Rice straw can be processed into simple paper, which is used as cigarette paper, for lamp shades or partition walls. Finer paper also can be made from it, especially together with other sorts of cellulose, like hemp.

Rice paper in the media

Rice paper was a central feature in the opening scenes of the TV show Kung Fu, where the young Kwai Chang Caine rolled out a long length of rice paper and walked on it, trying to leave behind no trace of his passage. "When you can walk along its length and leave no trace, it will be time for you to leave."

See also

• Banana paper
• Xuan paper
• Washi