Washi (和紙) — Japanese handmade paper — uses different fibers than Western paper (primarily kozo, the inner bark of mulberry). The long fibers produce a paper that is simultaneously thin, strong, and highly stable.
The process: cook fibers in lye, beat to separate, sheet in a mould suspended in water with a mucilaginous agent (neri) that slows drainage and allows fiber alignment. Dry on boards in the sun.
Washi sheets from the 8th century survive in better condition than 19th-century Western machine paper. The fiber length and preparation method produce permanence that modern paper manufacturing abandoned in favor of speed.