Kanazawa Gold Leaf

Kanazawa produces something on the order of ninety-nine percent of Japan's gold leaf, and the reason is climate: beating leaf requires stable humidity, because dry air makes the paper and the metal behave differently, and Kanazawa's damp winters suited it. Gold is alloyed slightly with silver and copper, rolled, then beaten between sheets of specially prepared washi in stacks, over and over, until it reaches about one ten-thousandth of a millimetre - thin enough to pass light and to tear at a breath, so workshops are kept still and the sheets are moved with bamboo tools rather than hands. The Kaga domain supported the craft from the seventeenth century and the leaf went into Kyoto temples, lacquer, screens and Buddhist altars. Workshops around the city run applying sessions where visitors leaf a small object; museums explain the beating. Gold-leaf ice cream is the tourist end of it and is exactly what it sounds like.

Highlights

• Almost all of Japan's leaf - a single city producing nearly the whole national supply.
• A ten-thousandth of a millimetre - beaten thin enough to pass light and tear at a breath.
• Bamboo handling - sheets moved with tools because skin oil and breath destroy them.
• Applying workshops - sessions where visitors leaf a small object themselves.

When to go

All year. Two to three hours. Workshops need booking in busy periods.

Practical notes

Beating is no longer done in front of visitors at most sites - what you see is application and explanation. Workshops book out in season. Gold-leaf food is a novelty with no flavour. Genuine leafed craft is expensive.

Nearby

Higashi Chaya has several workshops; Kenrokuen is south-west.