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Some people may use their favorite pottery tea ware to brew when drinking tea.
A lot of pottery ware is produced in various areas in Japan. This time, we are going to pick up the one to introduce, which is the pottery that has lately been featured: Hasami ware in Nagasaki
What is Hasami ware?
Hasami ware is the porcelain that has been produced for ages in and around the areas of Hasami in Nagasaki.
Hasami is a small town whose population is about 15,000. There are about 150 potteries and trading companies, and about 20-30% of the population is involved in the Hasami ware industry. While the industry was having a heyday, about 70% of the population was involved.
Now about just under 20% of household tableware in Japan is Hasami ware and a lot of tea ware is also produced.
Features of Hasami ware
There are several features of Hasami ware, and we are going to share two of them that are easy to get.
Role as a household tableware producer
Porcelain may remind you of luxury products, but Hasami ware does have household tableware. The high quality and reasonable prices have made Hasami ware popular among people in a wide range of age groups.
There are no certain techniques/methods
There are no certain techniques or methods to make Hasami ware. Therefore, it can be produced as designs and shapes can flexibly change according to the needs of the times, which is the strength of Hasami ware.
Hasami ware has a variety of designs and sizes and the products are available at many stores such as tableware stores and variety stores as well as specialty stores.
History of Hasami ware
Hasami ware is not well-known but has a long history: it is said that Hasami ware originated about 400 years ago.
Pottery was highly featured in Japan at that time, and people could get privileged only by possessing valuable yunomi teacups. Therefore pottery was treated as like an heirloom.
Once, noble daimyo lords brought potters from Korea to acquire advanced pottery techniques and got them to work in three places in Japan.
It is said that one of the three places was Hasami, which was the origin of Hasami ware.
Arita porcelain and Hasami ware
One of the reasons why Hasami ware is not well-known is because Hasami ware had been sold as Arita porcelain for a long time, which hadn’t brought many opportunities for Hasami ware to reveal the name/brand.
In fact, Hasami ware and Arita porcelain were both called Arita porcelain because the producing areas of Hasami ware and Arita porcelain are located next to each other and the productions were both shipped from Arita.