Bizen Yaki

No glaze, no paint, only fire

Bizen Yaki uses no glaze and no painting. It is simple, heavy and warm, and good to use, but its greatest feature is yohen: the colours and textures the kiln creates by chance. Because of yohen, no two pieces can ever be the same. Strictly speaking it is stoneware. It is made in Bizen, Okayama city and Setouchi in Okayama.

Two weeks in the climbing kiln

Pieces are fired in climbing kilns with red pine wood at about 1,230°C, stoked for around two weeks depending on the kiln. Heat, flame and ash change the surface, creating typical patterns:

• Goma (sesame): wood ash melts into a natural glaze that looks like scattered sesame seeds.
• Sangiri: where a piece was buried in embers, away from the flame, it turns blue-grey or dark grey.
• Hidasuki: red streaks left by straw wrapped around pieces so they do not stick together.

A thousand years of Bizen

Bizen is one of Japan's Six Old Kilns, already made in the Heian period, with roots in Sue ware. From the late Muromachi period tea masters loved its simplicity, and many tea wares were made. The domain protected it in the Edo period. In the Showa era, Kaneshige Toyo, Fujiwara Kei and Yamamoto Toshu were named Living National Treasures.