The banana planted this spring has flowered and begun to bear fruit! 😁 But this is not a story from the tropics. It is happening in Iga, Mie Prefecture, where the Hitotsuya Textile & Dye Farm is located. Our velvet banana is actually fruiting here! 😲
Iga is not an especially cold region, but it is not particularly warm either. And even though Hitotsuya is not a fruit farm, we are growing bananas here 🤣
▼ A velvet banana grown large at our Iga farm. A vivid pink flower can be seen between the broad leaves.
The reason is that I have long wanted to “try making bashōfu!” Bashōfu is a woven cloth made by extracting fiber from ito-bashō, turning it into yarn and weaving it.
But overwintering ito-bashō here in Iga seems difficult, so for a while I thought I would have to give up. Even so, I kept wondering, “Is there a banana that can survive a Japanese winter, especially in the Tokai region?” That search led me to Musa velutina, the species sold in Japan as “Akebi banana,” whose fruit opens somewhat like an akebi.
So I immediately bought ten seedlings. This experiment began when we planted the small seedlings in spring. Then, once the rainy season arrived, they grew rapidly, and this summer they finally flowered!
▼ A velvet banana flower emerging between the large leaves. Its vivid pink color is especially striking.
That led to my next question: “Could we make yarn from this banana?” I started researching right away, but unfortunately it seems difficult to extract yarn and weave it into cloth in the same way as bashōfu. 😢
But as I continued researching, I learned that there are cultures that make cloth-like material from plants without weaving. One example is “tapa”.
What is tapa?
Tapa is a “barkcloth” that has long been made mainly across islands of the South Pacific. Inner bark from plants such as paper mulberry, breadfruit and fig is stripped off, repeatedly beaten with wooden tools, spread thin, and joined or layered as needed to form a sheet-like material.
This is completely different from cloth made by spinning yarn and weaving it. The plant material itself is beaten and widened into a “non-woven sheet” that resembles cloth. Some examples may look a little like felt, but the method is different from wool felt, which is made by entangling fibers.
Of course, anything we make from velvet banana cannot simply be called traditional “tapa.” What Hitotsuya hopes to create is a new plant material made from velvet banana, inspired by the ideas and techniques of tapa.
▼ The velvet banana flower has developed further, and small fruits are beginning to appear. How will they change from here?
That said, tapa is a culture that has been nurtured over a very long time in the islands of the South Pacific. There is still much I do not know, and I need to keep studying detailed sources and methods little by little.
Our bananas were only planted this spring as well. We will avoid any large harvest for now and first let the plants grow strong. Even so, we can take a small amount within reason and begin experimenting――beating it, spreading it, layering it. That is where I would like to start.
But before that⋯ we have to taste the bananas first, right!? 🤣
Velvet banana fruit is apparently not packed with soft flesh like an ordinary dessert banana; it is said to contain many seeds. Still, a banana we planted ourselves in Iga has flowered and even set fruit, so surely we have to taste it at least once. 😁
What kind of material will this velvet banana grown in Iga become? Will it turn into a tapa-inspired plant sheet, or will something completely different emerge? We do not know the answer yet. That is exactly why it is interesting.
Please look forward to Hitotsuya’s new approach to making things!