Elements is the first rolling-paper brand Josh Kesselman ever made, a rice-style sheet launched in the late 1990s, years before RAW. Owned by his Phoenix company, HBI Innovations, and made in eastern Spain, it is a translucent, ultra-thin sheet with a vegan gum line and a watermark pressed into every leaf. Booklets, rolls, cones, tips and rolling machines fill out the range.
A homage to Marfil Arroz
Elements started with a magic trick. As Kesselman tells it, he met an older Spanish paper man, José Emilio, at a trade show and broke the ice with a story about his father, who did a trick with Marfil Arroz rolling papers. José's face changed: his wife's family, going back three generations, had made Marfil.
The old Marfil names were no longer available, so the two built something new. "I named the first brand Elements after the elements used to make the rice-style paper," Kesselman told MG Magazine. He calls it an homage to the past, and says it did very well from its late-'90s start.
José brought more than a family name. He had revived an old rolling-paper factory in Spain's Valencian region using machines and workers from the former Bambú plant. He also had old machines and techniques for flavored papers, which gave Kesselman Cool Jay's menthol and then Juicy Jay's.
The brand that came before RAW
Most smokers know Kesselman for RAW, but Elements came first. By his account, the success of Elements is what pushed him to chase the unbleached paper that became RAW, whose first real shipment landed in 2005 after a struggle to get paper mills to make it.
Kesselman retold that history at length in High Times, the magazine he bought in June 2025 and now publishes, and the Spanish partnership sits at the center of it.
How the sheet gets made
The early production model, in Kesselman's words, was to work with top European paper mills on a custom base sheet, ship the huge mother roll to José's factory in Spain, then press it, dry-calender the watermark, finish it and apply a gum José mixed from acacia tree sap. In 2019, with José nearing 80, that factory was sold to Kesselman's family.
Today Elements papers come out of a factory in Benimarfull, a village in eastern Spain dating to 1574 and ringed by old paper towns such as Alcoi, Xàtiva and Muro de Alcoy. The same plant makes RAW and Juicy Jay's for HBI.
Elements describes its paper as made from plants grown in natural soil, with a vegan gum line and a design built to leave less ash. Hold a sheet to the light and the watermark shows; the pattern is there to deliver a smooth, even burn. The brand builds its look around four themes: Earth, Water, Wind and Fire.
From Classic to Phantom
The paper catalog runs well past the standard booklet, with the Classic line in nearly every size and a string of specialty sheets.
- Classic: single wide, 1¼, 1½, King Size Slim, King Size Wide and the oversized Huge, plus a 300-leaf 1¼ pack and a Perfect Fold version
- Phantom: 1¼, King Size Slim and King Size Wide
- Prism and Pink: 1¼ and King Size Slim
- Artesano and Phatty Supreme: specialty papers alongside the core range
- Connoisseur: King Size papers packed with tips
- Rolls: five-metre rolls in King Size and King Size Slim
Cones, tips and the rest of the kit
Pre-rolled cones cover 1¼, 98 Special and King Size, in white Blanco, Pink and Green versions and retail packs from three to six cones. For pre-roll production there are bulk cases, including 900-count 1¼ cartons, 800-count King Size boxes and an 800-count 98 Special box.
Tips come pre-rolled, gummed, perforated and non-perforated, in wide and conical Maestro shapes, plus Prism and Pink versions and plantable Pink Waxy tips. Rolling machines run from 70mm and 79mm to 110mm and a 12-inch Huge model, and the Phoenix Lighter and a small Pink tray round out the accessories. For shops there are counter change mats, door mats and a six-foot inflatable tube.
Elements x Zushi
In 2025 Elements went to the grow room for a collab. Zushi, a boutique-genetics brand under Tenco, was burning so many Elements papers that Kesselman said he had to meet the team. The result was a limited Elements King Size Wide paper with custom Zushi artwork, released on April 20, 2025.
Stores got small allocations for the 4/20 window, and early packs resold online for $200, according to HBI. Kesselman on Zushi's Gerry: "Gerry's extremely talented. I gave him the ball and he ran with it." Zushi-branded tips, a small tray and King Size Zushi papers now sit in the Elements line.
Where Elements sits in the HBI stable
HBI Innovations, formerly BBK Tobacco & Foods doing business as HBI International, runs out of Phoenix and sells only to wholesale accounts, never directly to smokers. Its own brands include RAW, Elements, Juicy Jay's, Zen, Skunk Brand and Rolling Supreme, plus the MyWeigh, J-Scale and ProScale scale lines. Shops open Elements accounts through HBI.
Elements lands at No. 4 in Top 5 Best Rolling Paper Brands, the pick for rollers who want a thin, clean-burning sheet and have the technique to handle it. Rice-style paper rewards a tight, even roll, and that is the Elements crowd.