On Day 2 of our trip, Mr. Sugihara took us to various papermakers in the village. The first stop was Heizaburou Iwano’s mill, where our Iwano papers are made.
The storage room where all of the barks are kept:
“Chiritori” room:
The enormous factory space! There were 6 people (2 people for each vat) making large size papers when we visited:
Each paper is delicately dried by hand by the male workers:
Being one of the largest paper making factories in Japan, the number of workers as well as the amount of effort and hard work put into each process was surprising.
Each delicate step must be done with extreme care, or else the paper will not become the high quality that it is.
Hiromi Paper Blog 
Beautiful!
Yes, it truly was!