Ko‘olau String Packaging

Our new string packaging material is made from a natural, "tree-free" agricultural waste product. And so you will notice actual fruit and seed particles in the paper.

Ko'olau Mahana and Ko'olau Gold paper is made from recycled mango fiber and skins. The color of the paper is not a dye, but instead the actual color from natural crushed mangos and peels.

‘Alohi paper material is made from recycled banana fiber and skin.  At first thought you might ask why the paper is not yellow, like bananas.  It would be nice if bananas stayed a pretty yellow color, but crushed and recycled bananas instead turn an off white, gray color.

Ko'olau Gold paper has for many years been a clean yellow bond paper. In the future we will use the same Mango paper as for our Mahana sets.

On occasion customers will ask “what’s all of the junk in the paper.”   The perceived “imperfection” that you are seeing in the paper is actually pieces of fruit, berries, seeds, and skins that are part of the natural recycling process.

“Tree Free” paper is not only interesting and novel, but noteworthy in a world of rapid deforestation.  Of course we need to use trees for our instruments, but most trees are cut down for paper. But now there are now alternatives.