Hand made Rice   Paper from Anhui, Jinxian -- The place making paper for ink brush painting for thousands of years. Compare to machine pressed paper, these paper has super absorbancy and consistancy! Rice paper is a name used in the west. Anhui paper is not made from rice or bamboo pulp. Rather it's from the fiber of a special tree --- Qintan tree. This tree's fiber can be peeled and grow back again and again. Because of these special fiber, top quality xuan paper last forever and can be re-mounted again and again with water.

Red Star brand -- The best brand and most expensive. It's paper is much thicker and whiter even compare to the next best brand. A store in Japan is not considered a formal art supply store if it does not supply Red Star Brand. Red Star has a sells office stationed in Japan.

Hand Made Professional Xuan Paper

Professional artist paper. A totally different quality and price paper (about 3.6 - 4.6 times more in price within each brand)  compare to calligraphy and painting paper. For art work that you will hang up or sell to others, you need the paper be very uniform and absorbs the ink the same way everywhere. Quality xuan paper is very sensitive to any of your intentions. But the main feature of xuan paper is it's ability to last for thousands of years, while calligraphy and painting paper is made to imitate the functionality of xuan paper, thus provide an economical alternative for artists to learn how to use xuan paper. For people who have not been using xuan paper for long long time, without correct labeling, it's difficult to differentiate them. Anhui, Xuan city, Jing County made paper is always stamped on the edge of the stack of 100 sheets of paper. It states the brand, edition, quality, and kind of paper. Calligraphy and painting paper is stamped so. Double xuan, single xuan, or bark xuan is stamped so. If you do not see stamping on the edge, for sure you know it's not Anhui xuan paper. Only two other places that we know sell similar genuine xuan paper. One seller has Red Star xuan paper, but sold many times of the price we sell. Our Red Star double xuan is actually aged xuan paper made in 1998. We offer them at less than the price of other people's regular xuan brand price.

Wang, Liuji brand -- The next best brand. It's paper is extreamly uniform. Famous among artists in Asia since the early 50's. It's cost is 2.5 times of a regular brand xuan paper. If you cannot afford Red Star paper, use this for your professional painting. We sell this at prices that other people sell the regular brand xuan paper.

Hand Made Calligraphy and Painting paper

In Anhui paper maker town. These paper are sold not as xuan paper. Specifically labeled this way. A wonderful practice paper for anyone who is learning ink brush painting and calligraphy. Usually thicker than Single xuan paper. So it's much more forgiven!

   More economically made to imitate ink absorbancy, brush feel, and appearance just like xuan paper, but does not last well. So never use these for art work that you intend to sell and intend to past down to your children!

Regular Brand -- Cost much less in China compare to Red Star and Wang, Liuji brand. Since we sell Wang, Liuji brand at less than the prcie for regular brand xuan paper. For general white (off white) xuan paper, we do not provide these less quality xuan paper. We do have a regular brand craft xuan paper in several styles.

   In the old days, Jianxi Wuyuan belonged to the same prefecture as She County, Under the state name  She Zhou. This is why the first Treasure of the Chinese study is called She inkstone. The rare slate stone comes from Wuyuan, She, Jing, and Xiuling county. Mainly from Wuyuan and She county nowadays.

   The second treasure of the Chinese study is Hui inkstick, we already have extensive explanation for it!

   The third treasure of the Chinese study is the Hu Brush as is known by most people nowadays! But do you know where Hu brush came from and where was it originally made? It's from Xuan Brushes! In Tang and Song dynasty, around the region of Xuan county was the center of making brushes. By the end of South Song dynasty, the war in the north forced the makers move further south to Hu Zhou in Zhejian province, as you can see it's right south of Tunxi. The excellence of the Xuan brush maker was the biggest push to the development of Hu brush making. The special bamboo stick--- Chicken Hair Bamboo grown in Jiaxing Xia Shi is perfect as brush sticks. Because the knots is far apart and with very thin hollows inside. This is how the nearest town Shanlian became the most famous place for making Hu Brush. Goat hair brush is the most known among Hu brush. Because the rather flat plain near Hu Zhou, there are goats with hair tips that's very transparent, these hair is supple and easy to dye with ink, best for making brushes. So one way to identify Hu goat hair brush is the tip of the brush --- the translucency!

  Though the Xuan brush became less known after the Yuan dynasty. But some of the brush makers near Xuan county did not give up, they continue making brushes and passed down the technique to their heirs. With the transportation from Zhejiang to Anhui become easier and easier, they imported the superior goat hair from Jiaxing, Zhejian and combined with the unique Rabbit Sword hair from the local mountains, the different kind of combination of these two natural bristles turned into their landmark Xuan brush --- 7 Purple 3 Goat, 5 Purple 5 Goat, ..... satisfying   most of the needs of the calligrapher and brush painters! We are very proud to present to you Xuan brush, hopefully, we can bring back the glorious days of the Xuan brush maker hundreds and hundreds years ago!

   The fourth treasure of the Chinese study is the Xuan Paper, from Anhui Jing County! As noted by the heir of the Xuan paper maker in Jing county --- Cao, Tiansheng, who had his PH.D from the Political Science Research Center at The People University in Beijing, Who was also once a historical committee member of the Chinese Paper Making Association. Since the mid of last century, numerous occasions of spies from England and Japan, fake into the villages of Jing county to learn about the secret of making Chinese Xuan paper. After these people went back to their own country, they wrote and published how the Chinese made their Xuan paper.  In 1909, the Japanese even took some samples of Qing Tang tree to Japan, but the researchers cannot identify the tree, because it's not grown in Japan. After 1937, using the opportunity of invading China, the Japanese shipped some Qing Tang bushes to Japan. But the climate in Japan did not fit the tree to grow well. The paper made from the tree fiber was inferior. Later after China opened it's door, spying on the technique of making Xuan paper became much easier. But no matter how other paper makers imitated the technique, no one can make the same Xuan paper made in Jing County. This is because the minerals in the water of the Jing County springs and the climate in Jing county for growing the special tree fiber was vital for the quality of the absorbency of the paper. We are so proud that we are able to offer all the artists who loves Asia art the Xuan paper made from it's original village for thousands of years!

On the right side it's a copy of an original map of Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jianxi province. Our friend, old customer, and a professional web designer:  Judith Nermyr spent hours and hours of her vocation time, did the tedious work of removing the not so important information from the original map. Now you can see clearly where She and Jiangxi Wuyuan is and it's relative location to Hangzhou and Shanghai! Anyone who is interested to do a tour exploring the oldest art and culture of China, you can first fly to Shanghai, then fly to Tunxi (right next to the most famous Rock and Pine mountain Huangshan), there are two flights to Huangshan one in the early morning, one in the late afternoon on a daily basses. So it's very easy to get there. Make sure you visit the village of   Archery --- Tangyue, you will get to see the typical Hui residents shown in the movie "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon". Huizhou is called the "Rome of the East!", original architecture exists everywhere, though a lot of them got destroyed during the cultural revolution! You also should always visit Huangshan at the same time, the 72 natural rock peaks will make you feel the true elevation of spirituality, the scene in the movie where the male and female main character fought on the tip of the bamboo and the deep spring water pound where She dive into to fetch the magic sword sure will make you forget all the pain and struggling in the daily life! (Chinese called the smoke and fire in the human world - Ren Jian Yan Huo!)