Traditional craft
Echizen Yaki
越前焼
Simple, earthy pottery from Fukui, one of Japan's Six Old Kilns, with a pottery village where you can see, buy and try it.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 12 March 1986
- Type
- Ceramics
- Region
- Chubu
- Official name in Japanese
- 越前焼
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 福井市、あわら市、丹生郡越前町、三方上中郡若狭町
Plain beauty for daily life
Echizen Yaki is one of Japan's Six Old Kilns. It is mostly unglazed yakishime or finished with ash and iron glazes, with a rustic feel and no extra decoration. In the kiln, ash can fall on big jars and melt into a yellow-green natural glaze. It is made in Echizen town, Fukui city, Awara and Wakasa in Fukui.
Clay from under the rice fields
Potters mix three local clays dug from beneath rice paddies, called aoneba, akabeto and taikodo. Echizen's own nejitate coil-twisting method is still passed down. Pieces are fired at a high 1,200 to 1,300°C.
Two hundred old kilns
Echizen has been fired since the late Heian period, and more than 200 ancient kilns have been found. These big kilns made jars, pots, mortars, boat sake bottles and pots for the old tooth-blackening custom. After the Echizen Ceramic Village opened in 1971, potters came from all over Japan, and today Echizen mixes every style and method.
Good to know
- Spend a day at Google Maps 越前陶芸村 (opens in a new tab), with the prefectural ceramics museum, pottery classes, a park and a direct-sale shop.
- Big unglazed jars with natural ash glaze are the classic Echizen look to hunt for.
Questions travellers ask
What are the Six Old Kilns?
Seto, Tokoname, Echizen, Shigaraki, Tanba and Bizen, pottery areas with medieval roots.
Can I try pottery in Echizen?
Yes, the Echizen Ceramic Village runs pottery classes.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Local foods from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
- Echizen-Fukui: 400 years of towns built in stone
- Esashi: the herring town that outshone Edo
- Kitamaebune: the merchant ships that made Japan's port towns rich
- The railway across the sea: Nagahama, Tsuruga and Imajo
- The Six Ancient Kilns: pottery born and raised in Japan
- Wakasa and the Saba Kaido: the mackerel road to Kyoto
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.