Tomoe River Paper Notebooks

I hope you enjoyed the last blog post on our visit to Coach House Press! We certainly enjoyed looking around, but the visit was especially exciting because we got to pick up a project we've been working on with John. We've had Tomoe River paper for a while - it's this ultra thin but ink resistant paper, kind of like the feeling of Bible paper, but because of its ink resistance, there's very little feather or bleedthrough. It's crinkly and delicious and kind of reminiscent of airmail paper. You can see some more photos of ink on it here. Previously we've only had the paper available in A4 loose leaf sheets. This is great for writing letters or correspondence, but not so convenient to carry around with you. Once we began carrying Coach House Press notebooks, we figured we would ask if they could do anything with this super thin and super light paper.

We now have Tomoe River Paper Notebooks in two sizes, an A5 and an 11 x 21 cm one that will fit your Midori Regular Size Traveler's Notebook. One of the biggest advantages of this 11 x 21 cm notebook is that you can now fit more notebooks or accessories into your Traveler's Notebook without it bulging because the paper is so thin.

Each notebook has 64 pages and is trimmed and staple-bound right here in Toronto. Despite how thin the notebooks feel (with still 64 pages!), you can also feel how strong and almost heavy the paper is inside, because it's so dense, if that makes sense. The sizing on the Tomoe River paper is excellent, but keep in mind that it will take longer to dry! If dry time is a problem for you, consider getting a sheet of J. Herbin Blotting Paper to put in-between pages as you close up your notebook, absorbing any wet ink while marking your page. One piece of this blotting paper will last you a very long time, and as you use it, it will just get more and more little spots of ink.

The A5 notebook and the 11 x 21 notebook are available in limited quantities, since the Tomoe River paper is a little hard to come by. We're hoping with interest, we may make a few other sizes, but each new size requires set costs in addition to the binding. If you're a fountain pen user, and particularly a fountain pen ink lover with those broad and double broad nibs, the Tomoe River paper is something you definitely have to at least try, just to see the shading and sheen of those inks.