Monkey King Rolling Papers: Hemp, King Size

What you are actually buying, in millimetres

Rolling paper sizing is a naming convention rather than a standard, which is why two shops can sell you the same size under different names and both be right.

King Size slim is the long, narrow leaf. Monkey King's is 108 by 44mm, per its own specification. Medium, also written 1 1/4, is the middle size at 76 by 44mm, and it is the one most people in Britain grew up calling a large skin. Regular 70 is the short one at 68 by 36mm, roughly a cigarette paper.

The width is the part people underestimate. Regular is 36mm across and everything above it is 44mm, so moving from Regular to Medium gains you eight millimetres of width and eight of length. Moving from Medium to King Size gains you 32mm of length and no width at all. That is the whole difference between the two sizes most people are choosing between, and it is a length decision, not a capacity one.

The distributor's specification also lists 32 leaves in a booklet of this size, against 50 in the shorter Regular booklets. Fewer, longer leaves is the standard trade for a King Size book.

One inconsistency worth knowing about before you compare listings elsewhere. One UK retailer we checked lists the same King Size paper as 110mm on one product and 108 by 44mm on another, in the same grid. Both figures are floating around the trade. The 108 by 44mm pair is the one the manufacturer's own specification uses and the one an independent retailer states alongside a matching 14gsm figure, so it is the one we quote.

14gsm, and why that number beats the words on the pack

Grams per square metre is the only honest way to compare paper thickness, because ultra thin is a marketing word and gsm is a measurement.

This paper is 14gsm. To know whether that is thin you need the bands, and those are published, just not by anyone selling you a booklet.

Hemp papers run from about 14 to 25gsm. Rice runs from about 10 to 14. Flax sits around 13 to 18. Wood pulp, the traditional material, is the heaviest at roughly 18 to 28.

Set 14gsm against that and something interesting falls out. This hemp paper sits at the absolute bottom of the hemp band and inside the rice band. It is thinner than every wood pulp paper on the market and as thin as hemp is made.

Which quietly contradicts the thing every guide repeats, that hemp is the chunkier, grippier paper and rice is the thin one. As a generalisation about the materials it holds. As a statement about this specific product it does not, because 14gsm is 14gsm regardless of what the fibre is called.

The practical effect of a light paper is that less of what you are burning is paper, so the paper contributes less of its own character to the smoke. Hemp is usually described as carrying a mild, slightly earthy note where wood pulp is the one people notice. The brand's own claim is a slow burn with no additives.

What a light paper is not is easier. Thin paper tears more readily, creases where you did not want it to, and behaves worse in damp air. That is the trade you are making.

One description, seven different papers

Here is the part that does not add up, and we would rather tell you than let you find it.

Our distributor sells this King Size line in seven finishes: Blue, Green, Hemp, LGBT, Rainbow, Unbleached and White. We pulled all seven listings. Every one carries a byte-identical description, and that description states the material as unbleached hemp paper.

That cannot be true of all seven. A White paper is bleached by definition, since white is what bleaching produces. Blue, Green, Rainbow and LGBT are coloured sheets, and the same distributor's listings for its coloured Medium papers attribute that colour to natural vegetable colourants, which is a different specification again.

The same fault shows up elsewhere in the range. One Medium listing describes the paper as crafted with natural wood fibres in its prose and then gives its material as white rice paper in its own specification block, two sentences later.

So the specification blocks are being pasted across a family rather than written per product, which is ordinary practice in wholesale and still means nobody buying one of the seven can trust the material line.

The good news for this particular page is that the boilerplate is coherent here. Unbleached hemp paper is exactly what the Hemp variant is, so the description that is wrong on six listings happens to be right on this one. We have asked our distributor to correct the other six rather than quietly benefit from the confusion.

If you are choosing between the colours, this is the reason to pick on the name rather than on the description underneath it.

Arabic gum, and what unbleached actually means

Two words appear on almost every premium paper and almost nobody explains either.

Arabic gum is the adhesive strip. It is a tree sap, harvested from acacia, and it is the industry standard on natural papers because it is plant-derived rather than animal-derived, which makes it suitable for vegans, and because it seals with saliva and then holds. Synthetic adhesives exist further down the market and are usually the reason a paper unsticks halfway through. This paper is listed as using 100 per cent natural Arabic gum.

Unbleached means the pulp was never whitened. A paper that has not been bleached stays the brown of its own fibre, which is why unbleached papers look tan or greenish rather than white. It is a processing statement, not a quality one on its own, though it does mean one chemical stage fewer between the plant and the sheet.

The two often travel together on natural ranges and they are describing completely different parts of the product. One is the glue, one is the sheet.

For completeness, since this is a CBD shop: there is no cannabinoid in a rolling paper. Hemp here means hemp fibre, the stalk of the plant, which is a different part of the plant from the flower that extract comes from. Our catalogue currently records a cannabinoid spectrum against this row, which is wrong and is being corrected. Our Mr Tipp's blunt tube page sets that out in full.

Papers alone, or papers with tips

Inside this one brand there are four ways to buy essentially the same hemp paper, and the choice between them is not about quality.

This booklet is papers only. Nothing else in the pack. If you already keep tips, or you roll without one, that is exactly what you want and there is nothing here you are not using.

The papers and tips booklet is the same King Size hemp sheet with a card tip section bound in. Convenient, and the reason most people pick it, though the tips are card rather than glass or ceramic and they are single use.

The rolls are a continuous 4 metre length rather than cut leaves, which lets you tear whatever length you want. Useful if you roll long, awkward if you want consistency.

The cones are the no-rolling route. Pre-formed, tipped, and you fill them.

There is also an Expert Stoners edition in hemp at the same King Size. It is a named design series rather than a different paper, and unlike this listing it carries no published specification at all, which is the practical difference between the two if numbers matter to you.

Who should buy something else

If you are new to rolling, a 14gsm King Size is a hard place to start. It is long, it is narrow and it is about as thin as paper gets before it stops behaving. A Medium 1 1/4 in a slightly heavier paper is far more forgiving, and there is no shame in it.

If you want a tip in the same booklet, take the papers and tips version instead. Buying these and then hunting for tips separately is the most common mistake in this aisle.

If you roll in damp conditions, outdoors in a British winter for instance, a thin unbleached paper is the least cooperative thing you can hold. Something heavier will fight you less.

If you specifically want a paper with CBD in it, this is not that, and neither is any other hemp paper on this shelf unless it says so on the front. Our ROOR CBD infused papers are the ones that do.

And if you are comparing across brands rather than within this one, our RAW organic hemp papers and the Tokies natural hemp box are the closest equivalents we stock, both King Size and both hemp.

Over 18s only, on everything in this aisle.