Oshibori
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An oshibori (おしぼり or お絞り?) is a wet hand towel offered to customers in places such as restaurants or bars in Japan. Oshibori are used to clean one's hands before eating, and have long been a common sight in Japan. Cold oshibori are used in summer, and hot oshibori in winter. In mah-jong parlors, the words atsushibo and tsumeshibo, from the Japanese words atsui (熱い?), hot, and tsumetai (冷たい?), cold, are sometimes used to refer to hot and cold oshibori respectively.
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[edit] Derivation of word
The word oshibori comes from the Japanese word shiboru (絞る?), meaning "to wring", with the polite prefix o, which is added to several types of nouns, including many nouns related to washing or food. In Japanese script, the word oshibori is normally written in hiragana (おしぼり), seldom using kanji (お絞り or 御絞り).
Oshibori are also known as otefuki, from the Japanese te (手?) (hand) and fuku (拭く?), to wipe.
[edit] Typical oshibori
A typical oshibori, made of cloth, is dampened with water and wrung. It is then placed on the dining table for customers to wipe their hands with before or during the meal. The oshibori is often rolled or folded and given to the customer on some kind of tray. Even if a tray is not used, it is usually rolled up into a long, thin shape, although this is not necessarily the case with oshibori handed out together with, say, bentō lunch boxes.
Many establishments also give out towels made of non-woven cloth or paper, which are generally used once and then disposed of. Paper ones sometimes contain a sterilizing agent such as alcohol or stabilized chlorine dioxide. Paper oshibori, unlike cloth oshibori, can be folded and put into a very thin plastic wrapping, for inclusion with packaged products such as bentō lunch boxes, for example in convenience stores.
Oshibori are now also handed out on most airplane flights to and from Japan. Japan Airlines started giving out oshibori in 1959. They are also coming to be used more widely outside Japan, and there are now oshibori companies in Brisbane, Australia (Xceed Oshibori), in London, England (Mito) and in the USA.
[edit] Hot and cold oshibori
An oshibori can be moistened with hot water at an appropriate temperature or steam to make a hot oshibori, or placed damp into a refrigerator to make a cold oshibori suitable for use in summer. Restaurants usually use an electric appliance such as a heating cabinet or refrigerator for this. The heated towel used in barber's shops to give moisture to the skin or beard and make it easier to shave can also be thought of a type of oshibori.
[edit] Rented oshibori
As many establishments use oshibori in large quantities, they often do not prepare them in the store, but instead employ a rental service which launders them, rolls them into the typical cylindrical shape, and delivers them already damp. These rental service companies services frequently wrap each oshibori individually in a clear, lightweight plastic seal (polyethylene film), which can be easily broken and removed by the customer before using. Rental services typically use each oshibori about 25 times before selling them to third parties as cleaning rags or dustcloths.
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Much of this article was translated from the equivalent article in the Japanese Wikipedia, as retrieved on November 26, 2006.
