Hagi ware

In Hagi, the ware sits between castle-town remains, exhibition rooms, and working kilns. The museum near the Hagi Castle ruins entrance displays early works from the Mouri domain kiln period, while the Yoshika Taibi Memorial Museum brings together Yoshika Taibi works, old Hagi bowls, kiln shards, and raw clay. With more than 100 kilns in the city, the place of the ware is visible in clay, old vessels, and present makers.

The beginning is traced to 1604, when Mouri Terumoto entered Hagi and the Korean potter brothers Ri Shakkou and Ri Kei opened kilns. Works from the early Mouri domain kiln period near the castle ruins give that date a physical setting in bowls and vessels tied to a domain kiln.

One practical way to understand Hagi-yaki is through the firing. The clay is fired slowly for a long time at low temperature in climbing kilns, leaving the body less tightly fired, absorbent, and soft in the hand. That moisture-holding quality is why use matters: the vessel remains open enough for tea to enter the fine surface crazing.

Crazing is the small surface crackle through which tea enters a Hagi-yaki vessel. As tea seeps in, the inside and outside gradually change in color and gloss; tea practitioners value this shift as Hagi no nanabake. A carefully used bowl therefore carries a visible trace of repeated tea over time.

The foot ring gives a close way to look at a Hagi-yaki tea bowl. A kodai is the round ring supporting the body and lower curve of the bowl; it may be made as an attached ring or carved from the clay body with a spatula. Hagi-yaki often uses a cut or split foot ring, called kiri-kodai or wari-kodai, so the underside of the bowl becomes part of the form.

Tea bowls shape the image of Hagi-yaki, and the same city also makes daily utensils. Alongside matcha bowls, the named forms include yunomi and coffee cups. The Yoshika Taibi Memorial Museum also shows large vases, water basins, mizusashi, and matcha bowls, so the family is visible through tea practice, flowers, water vessels, and daily drinking.

The present-day maker community is easiest to see in named places and activities. One local cooperative was established in 1998, took its current name in 2012, and had 19 members in April 2025. Its recent activity includes exhibitions, web and social pages, an event at Hagi Meiringakusha, and Hagi-yaki capsule-toy machines placed in the city; these details sit beside the wider picture of more than 100 kilns in Hagi.