A thousand years of craft. One careful sheet at a time.

The paper that outlasted empires.

Lokta paper has been made in Nepal since the 12th century. It was the paper of kings and monasteries — used for royal proclamations, sacred Buddhist texts, and the prayer wheels that still turn in temples across the Himalayan foothills today.

The material comes from the Daphne plant — a wild shrub that grows at altitude between 1,600 and 4,000 metres. Unlike conventional paper production, which requires trees to be felled, lokta production leaves the plant intact. The inner bark is harvested by hand, and the plant regenerates within five years. No deforestation. No bleaching. No plastic. Just a plant that has been growing in Nepal's mountains for thousands of years, processed using techniques that have barely changed since the 12th century.

Made by hand. Every single sheet.

The lokta bark is stripped, boiled, and beaten into a fibrous pulp. That pulp is then mixed with water and poured by hand into shallow bamboo frames — each one producing a single sheet of paper. The frames are laid out to dry in the Himalayan sunlight.

Why Fair Trade matters to us.

We did not set out to build a Fair Trade business. We set out to build an honest one — and discovered that for us, those two things were the same.

Our supplier in Nepal is fully Fair Trade certified. That means the growers who harvest the lokta bark are paid a fair price. The artisans who make and print the paper work in good conditions. And a portion of every sale goes back into the community through investment in healthcare, education, and local infrastructure.

When you buy from 88East, you are not just buying paper. You are participating in a supply chain that has been designed, from the ground up, to do more good than harm.

We think that is worth paying a little more for. And we think you might too.

Once dry, each sheet is vegetable dyed using natural pigments — the deep indigo you see in our paper comes from plants, not chemicals. The sheets are then screen printed by hand in Kathmandu, adding pattern and character to each one.

Because every step is done by hand, no two sheets are ever identical. The slight variations in texture, colour, and print are not imperfections. They are the point.

The best gifts come wrapped in intention.

Lokta paper is strong enough to be reused — many of our customers use the same sheets for years, passing them between family members and friends. It composts naturally if you choose to dispose of it. And the joy of receiving something wrapped in a material this distinctive is, we're told, something people remember.

£1 from every sale we make goes directly to support free education for children in the lokta-producing communities of Nepal and the Kathmandu Valley. The school is run by the same community that makes our paper. We think that matters.

This is gift wrap that does not end up in the bin ten seconds after unwrapping. It has a life of its own.