RAW Black Organic Hemp Papers, King Size Slim

Why this one burns slowly, and it is not the watermark

RAW's best known technical feature is the CrissCross watermark, a fine pattern pressed into the sheet that gives the burning edge an irregular surface to travel across. Our Connoisseur listing goes into it. It is a texture, and it works by changing the shape of the burn.

This paper does something else. The description for it names very low porosity as the reason it burns slowly, and porosity is a structural property rather than a surface one.

Porosity is simply how readily air passes through the paper itself. A porous sheet lets oxygen in along its whole area, feeding the burn from the sides as well as the tip. A tight, low-porosity sheet does not, so the burn has less oxygen to work with and moves more slowly. It is the same reason a tightly rolled cigarette burns slower than a loose one, applied to the paper instead of the contents.

So RAW is using two independent levers across its range: one that changes the texture of the burning edge and one that changes how much air gets through the sheet. Nobody sets those side by side, and knowing the difference tells you what you are actually buying when a paper claims to be slow.

The trade-off is exactly what you would expect. Making a sheet thin enough and tight enough to restrict airflow makes it more fragile. That is the whole reason for the expert smokers line.

The gum question, which our other RAW pages would not answer

A small piece of housekeeping that says something about how we write these.

Our listings for the RAW Connoisseur and the Gary Payton edition both describe the paper in detail and neither says a word about what the gum strip is made from. That was deliberate. One retailer described RAW Organic papers as using a hemp-based gum, while our RAW x Lyrical listing had already stated acacia, and we would rather leave a gap than have two of our own pages contradict each other over a detail we could not settle.

This listing settles it, at least for this paper. The description states the sheet is finished with a sustainably harvested organic gum from acacia tree sap. Acacia gum, also sold as gum arabic, is tree sap and is the standard adhesive on natural papers.

We are stating that for this product rather than for RAW's entire range, because that is what the source supports. If the Connoisseur and Gary Payton listings ever publish theirs, we will update those pages rather than assume.

It is a minor detail on its own. It matters slightly more here because the paper is otherwise made from two things, hemp and water, so the gum is a third of the ingredient list.

There are two RAW Blacks, and this is the hemp one

Worth knowing before you buy, because they look nearly identical on a shelf and the listings do not distinguish them.

RAW makes a Classic Black and an Organic Hemp Black. Both are king size slim. Both hold thirty-two leaves. Both come fifty booklets to a trade box. Both are described as the thinnest paper RAW has made, which cannot be true of both at once and probably refers to each being the thinnest within its own family.

The difference is the base paper. The Classic Black is built on RAW's Classic sheet. This one is built on organic hemp, which is the same material as the Connoisseur and the Gary Payton edition we stock, taken thinner.

We carry the Organic Hemp version only. If you have used a RAW Black before and are trying to work out whether this is the same one, check whether yours said Classic or Organic Hemp, because that is the only reliable difference between them.

Two ingredients, one anniversary, and a village in Spain

The ingredient list is about as short as a manufactured product gets: hemp and water, plus the acacia gum on the strip. RAW adds that its papers contain no burn additives, which is the industry term for the chemicals some papers use to keep a flame going evenly.

The provenance is where the descriptions start disagreeing with each other, in ways too small to matter and too odd to leave out.

The distributor says this paper was released to celebrate sixteen years of RAW. Retailers selling the same product say fifteen. One of those is wrong and we have no way to tell which, so read the anniversary as approximate.

On where it is made, RAW's descriptions across the Black range name two different places in Spain: the Benimarfull region on one listing and Alcoy on another. Those are not in conflict, since Benimarfull is a village a short distance from Alcoy and both sit in Alicante, but it does mean two RAW listings give you two different answers to the same question.

The reason RAW mentions the location at all is genuinely relevant. It describes the dry Valencian winds as keeping humidity optimally low, and paper made and stored in low humidity behaves differently from paper made in damp air. For an ultra-thin sheet, that matters more than it would for a thick one.

For expert smokers only, and they mean it

It is rare for a manufacturer to put a warning in its own marketing copy, so when RAW ends this product's description with for expert smokers only, it is worth reading as advice rather than as flattery.

A paper this thin is harder to handle. It tears more readily when you are tucking it, it is less forgiving of a damp thumb, and it shows every flaw in a roll rather than hiding them under a heavier sheet. If your rolling is still at the stage where the paper doing some of the work is welcome, this will make things harder rather than easier.

What you get in exchange is the thing thin-paper people care about: less paper in the burn, so less paper in the taste, and a slower burn from the low porosity. RAW's own phrase is that it preserves your terps, which is its way of saying the flavour of what you are smoking comes through rather than the flavour of the sheet.

That is a manufacturer's claim about taste and we are passing it on as one. It is also the entire proposition of the product, and if it does not appeal, the standard organic hemp papers on our shelves are easier to live with.

What is in it, and what is not

Unbleached organic hemp paper, water and an acacia gum strip. No cannabinoid of any kind, no CBD, no tobacco and no nicotine. Nothing in the UK rules covering CBD products applies to a rolling paper.

Because it is unbleached, expect a translucent sheet rather than a white one, and expect the tone to vary between batches. Our Connoisseur listing explains why that happens.

Everything on this site is 18+ only.

Who should buy something else

Anyone still learning to roll. RAW's own copy says expert smokers only and we are not going to argue with it. Start on the Connoisseur or the Gary Payton edition, which are the same organic hemp in a more forgiving weight.

Anyone who wants tips in the pack. This is papers alone. The Connoisseur is the one with matched tips.

Anyone who rolls king size wide. This is slim, and the RAW x Lyrical collaboration is the wide one, though it is also flavoured.

Anyone who has used a RAW Black before and liked it without checking which one. There are two, and this is the organic hemp version rather than the Classic.

And anyone who finds thin papers fragile in general. The thinness is not incidental here, it is the product, and there is no version of this that is both this slow-burning and robust.