Kyoto Raku Studio Waraku Kyoto handmade chawan tea bowl | KAIKO&CO

I walked into Raku Studio Waraku on a quiet afternoon in Gion, Kyoto. The noren curtain was out, one bowl was arranged in the window, and the friendly lady inside asked after a brief exchange of raku ware passion whether I wanted to see how they make them.

That is not a question I say no to.

What followed was a wonderful deep-dive in the workshop behind the shop. Raku is hand-formed without a wheel, which means every bowl starts as a lump of clay in someone’s hands and ends up exactly as uneven and alive as that sounds. The kiln runs low and hot. The glaze is applied by hand.

The black marks that appear in the red glaze come from charcoal introduced at the right moment in the firing. You cannot fully control where they land. That is part of it.

What Raku ware actually is

Raku is one of the oldest continuous ceramic traditions in Japan, and one of the few that was developed specifically for the tea ceremony rather than adapted to it.

The first Raku bowls were made in the late 16th century in Kyoto, hand-formed at the request of tea master Sen no Rikyū. He wanted a bowl that was the opposite of the refined, wheel-thrown porcelain coming out of the continent: rough, quiet, made to be held rather than admired.

The technique that came out of that conversation has not changed much. No potter’s wheel. No mold for the ceremonial pieces. The clay is pressed and shaped entirely by hand, a method called tezukune. Every bowl starts as a block and ends up as whatever the hands and the clay agreed on. You can see the fingerprints if you look.

Behind the workshop door

The workshop is directly behind the shop, separated by a door that most visitors never see. The shelves held bowls at every stage: raw clay, bisque-fired, glazed, finished. The kiln sits in the back, low and wide, built for the specific temperatures that Raku requires. Unlike most ceramics, which are fired at high heat, Raku fires relatively low. The result is a clay body that stays slightly porous, slightly soft, with a weight and warmth that high-fired porcelain does not have.

She explained the glazing process while we stood next to the kiln. For aka-raku, the red Raku, the bowl is coated with a lead-free red glaze and fired. At the right moment in the cooling process, charcoal is introduced. The carbon from the charcoal reduces the oxygen around the surface of the bowl, and where it touches the glaze it leaves a black mark. Not a painted mark. A mark that happened. Just like in the picture below: you can guide it, but you cannot fully control it. Every bowl that comes out of that kiln is different from the one before it.

Kuro-raku, the black Raku, works differently: the bowl is coated in a black glaze and fired at a slightly lower temperature, then removed from the kiln while still hot and allowed to cool in the open air. The rapid cooling creates the surface texture and the depth of colour that makes a good kuro-raku chawan recognizable from across a room.

What 8 generations looks like

Waraku Studio has been in the Gion district since the end of the Edo period, roughly 190 years. The studio was originally a teahouse, and the first generation started making pottery almost as a side activity. By the second generation, Raku ware had become the focus. And that shows.

In 1918, Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō visited the studio and gave it the name Waraku, written in his own hand. That name has been on the noren ever since.

Kawasaki Motoo trained as an engineer before taking over the kiln, which explains both the precision of how he talks about the firing process and the ease with which he pulls a bowl off a shelf and hands it to you without ceremony. He makes bowls for tea ceremony and for daily use. A guinomi for sake. A yunomi for morning tea.

The same hands, the same clay, the same kiln.

💡 Why this matters for the objects I source

Afternoons like this one are part of why I can write about what I sell with any accuracy. Knowing what a Raku kiln looks like, how the charcoal is used, what the glaze smells like when it comes out of the firing: that knowledge is in every condition note and every care instruction I write.

A good chawan is not just something that looks right. It is something that was made right. The two things are connected, and after an hour in that workshop, you understand exactly how.

I walked into Raku Studio Waraku on a quiet afternoon in Gion, Kyoto. The noren curtain was out, one bowl was arranged in the window, and the friendly lady inside asked after a brief exchange of raku ware passion whether I wanted to see how they make them.

That is not a question I say no to.

What followed was a wonderful deep-dive in the workshop behind the shop. Raku is hand-formed without a wheel, which means every bowl starts as a lump of clay in someone’s hands and ends up exactly as uneven and alive as that sounds. The kiln runs low and hot. The glaze is applied by hand.

The black marks that appear in the red glaze come from charcoal introduced at the right moment in the firing. You cannot fully control where they land. That is part of it.

What Raku ware actually is

Raku is one of the oldest continuous ceramic traditions in Japan, and one of the few that was developed specifically for the tea ceremony rather than adapted to it.

The first Raku bowls were made in the late 16th century in Kyoto, hand-formed at the request of tea master Sen no Rikyū. He wanted a bowl that was the opposite of the refined, wheel-thrown porcelain coming out of the continent: rough, quiet, made to be held rather than admired.

The technique that came out of that conversation has not changed much. No potter’s wheel. No mold for the ceremonial pieces. The clay is pressed and shaped entirely by hand, a method called tezukune. Every bowl starts as a block and ends up as whatever the hands and the clay agreed on. You can see the fingerprints if you look.

Behind the workshop door

The workshop is directly behind the shop, separated by a door that most visitors never see. The shelves held bowls at every stage: raw clay, bisque-fired, glazed, finished. The kiln sits in the back, low and wide, built for the specific temperatures that Raku requires. Unlike most ceramics, which are fired at high heat, Raku fires relatively low. The result is a clay body that stays slightly porous, slightly soft, with a weight and warmth that high-fired porcelain does not have.

She explained the glazing process while we stood next to the kiln. For aka-raku, the red Raku, the bowl is coated with a lead-free red glaze and fired. At the right moment in the cooling process, charcoal is introduced. The carbon from the charcoal reduces the oxygen around the surface of the bowl, and where it touches the glaze it leaves a black mark. Not a painted mark. A mark that happened. Just like in the picture below: you can guide it, but you cannot fully control it. Every bowl that comes out of that kiln is different from the one before it.

Kuro-raku, the black Raku, works differently: the bowl is coated in a black glaze and fired at a slightly lower temperature, then removed from the kiln while still hot and allowed to cool in the open air. The rapid cooling creates the surface texture and the depth of colour that makes a good kuro-raku chawan recognizable from across a room.

What 8 generations looks like

Waraku Studio has been in the Gion district since the end of the Edo period, roughly 190 years. The studio was originally a teahouse, and the first generation started making pottery almost as a side activity. By the second generation, Raku ware had become the focus. And that shows.

In 1918, Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō visited the studio and gave it the name Waraku, written in his own hand. That name has been on the noren ever since.

Kawasaki Motoo trained as an engineer before taking over the kiln, which explains both the precision of how he talks about the firing process and the ease with which he pulls a bowl off a shelf and hands it to you without ceremony. He makes bowls for tea ceremony and for daily use. A guinomi for sake. A yunomi for morning tea.

The same hands, the same clay, the same kiln.

💡 Why this matters for the objects I source

Afternoons like this one are part of why I can write about what I sell with any accuracy. Knowing what a Raku kiln looks like, how the charcoal is used, what the glaze smells like when it comes out of the firing: that knowledge is in every condition note and every care instruction I write.

A good chawan is not just something that looks right. It is something that was made right. The two things are connected, and after an hour in that workshop, you understand exactly how.

Originally published at https://www.kaikoandco.com on June 2, 2026.