Karatsu Ware: Kyushu's Rough, Tea-Loved Pottery
The Story of a Powerful Ware, Told by the Clay of Kyushu
In the northwest of Saga Prefecture, facing the Genkai Sea, is a town called Karatsu. Its name means "the port (tsu) toward Korea and China (kara)," and it long served as Japan's window onto Asia.
The ware born in this place some 450 years ago is Karatsu ware.
"First Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu" — in the famous saying that ranks tea bowls in the world of the tea ceremony, Karatsu holds one of the most important positions. As one of the three great tea-ceramic regions, valued across the centuries, that position is an unshakeable honour.
Tea practitioners have also described Karatsu ware as "ware that makes you want to eat rice." Plain and warm, it makes food look good when served on it. It is japanese pottery raised by the land of Kyushu, perfecting the beauty of use.
The History of Karatsu Ware: A Revolution Brought by Korean Potters
The Footsteps of Korean Potters
The origin of Karatsu ware is bound up with the Korean campaigns of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had unified Japan, in the late sixteenth century (the Bunroku and Keichō campaigns, 1592–1598).
When the daimyo of Kyushu were sent overseas at Hideyoshi's command, they brought many Korean potters back with them on their return. This historical fact — sometimes called "the pottery war" — became the direct occasion for the birth of the kiln regions across Kyushu, Karatsu and Arita, and of Hagi ware, which stands alongside Raku ware and Karatsu ware in the tea ceremony.
The Korean potters brought to Karatsu carried the techniques of their homeland into Japanese clay — above all the kick wheel (keri-rokuro), a form of wheel throwing turned with the foot, and the art of plain iron-pigment painting. Where Korean technique met Japanese clay, the distinctive beauty of Karatsu ware was born.
The Brilliance of Ko-Karatsu
Ko-Karatsu — "old Karatsu," fired in the early seventeenth century — remains one of the most treasured items in any collection of japanese ceramics.
What characterises Ko-Karatsu is an unadorned beauty in which plain painting — iron painting, hakeme brushwork, mottled madara glaze — fuses with the natural warmth of the clay. The tea master Furuta Oribe is said to have loved it especially, and it embodies the "beauty of the irregular" to Oribe taste. Furuta Oribe sought bowls that were rough, dynamic, and unpredictable rather than perfect and beautiful. Deliberate distortion, cuts, and tilting came to be applied to tea bowls, and an aesthetic called hakaku, "breaking the rule," was born.
In the Edo period, demand for Karatsu ware fell temporarily with the rise of Arita ware — white porcelain and sometsuke — but its standing as tea ware continued unshaken.
Techniques and Types of Karatsu Ware
Karatsu ware has a diversity of styles, and that diversity shows the richness of the region.
| Type | How it is made | How it looks |
|---|---|---|
| E-Karatsu | Painted with iron-rich pigment (oniita) | Grasses, birds, geometric motifs in brown |
| Madara-Karatsu | Wood-ash glaze applied | Glaze runs unevenly into a mottled pattern |
| Hakeme-Karatsu | White slip swept on boldly with a brush | The brush strokes themselves become the pattern |
| Chosen-Karatsu | Two glazes, black and white (or black and blue) | The glazes react at the boundary and flow |
| Muji-Karatsu | No decoration at all | Only the natural glaze colour and clay texture |
E-Karatsu: Painted Karatsu
Karatsu ware painted with iron-bearing pigment in grasses, birds and beasts, and geometric motifs.
What characterises Karatsu painting is its plainness. Rather than fine depiction, a few lines stand for grass and a round shape for fruit — a near-abstract simplification that stirs the viewer's imagination all the more. The sensibility that calls this "the Karatsu drawing" comes from the same feeling as the beauty of omission in haiku.
Typical motifs — karakusa scrolling vines, pine, reeds, pampas grass — are taken largely from natural plants, and evoke the turning of the seasons.
Madara-Karatsu: Mottled Karatsu
A style in which wood-ash glaze runs unevenly to produce a mottled pattern. The unpredictable mottling emphasises the individuality of each piece as one of a kind.
Hakeme-Karatsu: Brush-Marked Karatsu
A style in which white slip is swept on boldly with a brush and the strokes are kept as pattern. The powerful movement of the brush gives the piece a sense of life. → Hakeme: The Brush-Marked White Slip Technique
Chosen-Karatsu: Korean Karatsu
A style using two glazes, black and white — or black and blue — to create a flowing pattern. The two glazes react at their boundary during firing, producing a distinctive flow. As the name suggests, it retains the influence of Korean ceramics most strongly.
Muji-Karatsu: Plain Karatsu
Karatsu ware without decoration. The most unflinching style, competing on the natural colour of the glaze and the texture of the clay alone. In the tea ceremony it is loved particularly where the form of the bowl itself is what is judged.
The Clay and Glazes of Karatsu Ware
What characterises Karatsu ware is the clay of the place — and the glazes used there.
The Clay of Karatsu
The clay of the Karatsu region is mainly feldspathic clay weathered from granite, sandy to the touch and containing comparatively coarse particles. This nature of the clay produces Karatsu ware's rough clay feel and its warm surface quality.
Fired colours are brown, grey, and ivory — very much "the colours of nature." It holds no decorative colour; the colour of the clay itself decides the expression of the piece. This is the root of Karatsu ware's plain beauty.
The Pigment of Iron Painting
The tetsue iron pigment used for E-Karatsu is a natural mineral high in iron called oniita, ground and mixed with water. It appears black before firing, but fires to a warm brown or blackish brown.
This plain colour is the opposite pole of beauty from fine painting in expensive pigment — you might call it "a drawing in the colour of earth, like a weed."
On glaze types and how colour develops, see Japanese Pottery Glazes: The Main Types Explained. On painting techniques generally, see Japanese Pottery Patterns: What the Motifs Actually Mean.
Karatsu Ware Into the Present
Praised alongside the development of tea as "first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu," it has been loved for centuries. Here is how that tradition has been carried into the present.
Nakazato Tarōemon
Indispensable to any account of Karatsu ware is the distinguished Nakazato family. The name, handed down through generations, can be called the spiritual pillar of the region. The twelfth Nakazato Tarōemon in particular was the figure who revived the Ko-Karatsu techniques that had nearly died out, and in 1976 he was designated a Living National Treasure. The fourteenth now carries on that intention, protecting the weight of tradition while continuing creative work that carries the breath of the present.
Nakazato Hōan
Born the third son of the twelfth, Hōan was a maker who let an original sensibility bloom on the foundation of tradition. His work, pursuing beauty of form while drawing on the texture of Karatsu clay, is highly valued not only domestically but in galleries in Europe and America. His achievement — not merely "protecting" tradition but "raising" it into the realm of contemporary art — greatly widened what Karatsu ware could be.
The Younger Makers of Karatsu
Karatsu today is a lively region where more than fifty makers work side by side. Some follow the footsteps of their predecessors and take on the reproduction of Ko-Karatsu; a growing number of younger makers create pieces that dissolve into daily life through their own glazes and forms. As diverse individualities mix, Karatsu ware is now approaching a new golden age beyond the frame of traditional craft.
Karatsu Ware and Food: Ware That Makes You Want to Serve Rice
Among the words tea practitioners used of Karatsu ware is "Karatsu for the rice bowl." Serve rice or a dish in a Karatsu rice bowl or bowl and it somehow looks especially good. Many lovers of tableware have experienced this.
One reason lies in Karatsu ware's warm clay colour. Where white porcelain makes the colour of food look sharp, the warm brown of Karatsu ware seems to wrap the food, making the whole impression gentle and appetising.
On how the colour and texture of a piece change the way taste is perceived, see Does the Bowl Change the Taste? The Science of Utsuwa. On choosing a rice bowl itself, see How to Choose a Japanese Rice Bowl (Chawan).
Pairing With Sake
Karatsu guinomi cups are highly valued as sake ware. Not as intensely individual as Bizen ware, not as soft as Hagi ware, Karatsu has the generosity to accept any drink.
It is held to suit sake and shochu especially — barley and sweet potato shochu above all — and is deeply connected to the food culture of Kyushu.
Pairing With Contemporary Cooking
Japanese cooking of course, but also Western and Mediterranean food, pair outstandingly. Fish cooked in olive oil, grilled vegetables, deli pastes — served in a Karatsu bowl or plate, the dish completes itself as "a contemporary picture held in a Japanese piece."
As a gift for someone who enjoys food internationally, Karatsu ware is a particularly apt choice.
Visiting the Region
Karatsu City is about an hour from Fukuoka by train (JR Karatsu Line or Chikuhi Line) or roughly an hour by car. Several kilns and galleries cluster in the central district, and you can walk between them visiting makers.
- Karatsu Kunchi The festival of Karatsu Shrine held every November, in which magnificent floats process through the town — Kyushu's foremost festival. Visiting at this time lets you feel the culture of Karatsu deeply.
- Imari and Arita, 30–40 minutes from Karatsu You can plan a "Kyushu ceramics journey" combining Karatsu with the neighbouring region of Arita and Imari ware.
Unadorned Beauty, Born from Clay
Karatsu ware is among Japan's foremost ceramics for presenting neither splendour nor fineness but the honesty of clay as beauty.
The spirit Korean potters put into foreign clay, the wabi beauty tea practitioners found in it, the warmth of the hands contemporary makers carry on. These layered together give Karatsu work a plain power to enrich the daily life of the person who uses it.
At Nokaze, work made carefully by the makers of Karatsu is introduced alongside each of their stories. We bring the warmth of the land of Kyushu to your table.
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