Arita in Saga Prefecture is famous for porcelain. Its connection began 400 years ago with the return of a failed Japanese invasion of Korea. As a consolation prize they brought back a bunch of kidnapped porcelain makers, settled them in Arita and forced them to practice their craft. The porcelain wares they produced are known as aritayaki.

Porcelain is still the driving economic factor today and is among the finest produced in Japan. Here you can find porcelain factories that have been family run for generations and these range from small operations to the famous names of Koransha and Fukagawa.

Arita’s Kouraku Gama (Kiln) has been in operation since 1865, though moved to its current site 50 years ago. Primarily a manufacturer of practical tableware aritayaki for restaurants and ryokans, if you’ve eaten around Kyushu you’ve possibly seen their work without realizing it. Unsold stock was stored in their warehouse along with factory rejects and one-offs as time went on with new designs over the years.

That practice resulted in an overflowing porcelain warehouse brimming with boxes of dusty but good wares. Instead of trying to sell everything off at set prices like a normal shop, the treasure hunt began.

It’s a simple concept, for 5,000 yen you’re given a shopping basket and can fill it up to the top with whatever you like from the main room. For 10,000 yen you can fill from the main room or the back room, which has even more colorful and interesting porcelain. You have 90 minutes or until the humidity gets to you to collect your treasure.

The warehouse is wooden building with a hard earth floor and open barn doors for ventilation, but once I started browsing the July weather didn’t really bother me even as the sweat began to pour freely.

It was like a porcelain buffet. There were things we ‘needed,’ and then there was ‘but we still have to fill up more of the basket and this looks cool!’

The main room had stacked boxes upon boxes of blue and white aritayaki and some interesting plant pattern plates, but it was the second room that made the trip worth it. It’s a true eclectic mix that makes the treasure hunt live up to its name.

Old wooden boxes were sometimes full of one design, or a grab bag. A box of lids here, a box of lid-less porcelain there.  The colors were vibrant and diverse, not just the traditional blue and white or monochromes, but some really nice colorful designs and unique shapes.

Sebastiao Pimenta, the resident coordinator who runs the warehouse, said that when he started the treasure hunt he was told it wouldn’t work because the stock was old. Who wants old stock? Well, it was all new to me and the designs were beautiful.

While I was walking around Pimenta showed me a small sake serving bottle, similar to one I’d already picked up but lacking some of the trim. He once asked one of the workers if they could still make this particular pattern and was told it wasn’t possible because of age. Those had been sitting in the warehouse since before he was born 40 years ago. Some of the pieces had been boxed up here since 1964.

This was exciting to me because I’d aspired to start a tiki bar quite a few years back. I’d learned the classic cocktails and spent years traveling and collecting authentic tropical décor that would do Donn Beach and Trader Vic Bergeron proud. Now here I was in a place that sold the kind of old-fashioned porcelain that would be perfect in an exotic getaway.

Figuring out the porcelain’s age is tricky because there’s no year mark on anything, the only way to date is by the yellowed newspaper lining its wooden box. Assuming it originally came from the box you found it in. I’ll be honest, after my wife and I piled up our basket and had minor disagreements of what we needed I ended up piling some stuff back in the nearest box without trying to put it back right. Just like everyone else apparently has, but hey, that adds to the fun for the next guy.

At the end we checked out with our collection and Pimenta looked it over. It seems I naturally gravitated to the oldest stuff in the collection without realizing it and my wife liked the newer (5-10 years) designs. One piece in particular that I loved, a wavy blue sashimi serving tray with painted detail, Pimenta believes was probably one of the first designs put out here 50 years ago and is worth 8,000 yen by itself.

We left feeling satisfied with our haul and while we have enough porcelain for ourselves and to entertain, I look forward to round two when I finally get around to leasing that tiki bar.

Our haul, not bad for what we spent.

The treasure hunt is open daily, though reservations are required as there is a limit of 10 persons/groups per day. Contact information is at the bottom of the story.

Pimenta speaks Japanese, English, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese so communication shouldn’t be an issue for non-Japanese.

Sebastiao Pimenta

Kouraku Kiln
090-8351-4121
9 a.m. – 5p.m.
2512 Hei Maruo  Arita-cho Nishimatsuura-gun Saga-ken 844-0023

Note- I rarely do articles on private businesses, which this is, so I want to state that I was not paid to write this nor was I offered any incentive to do so either. I just really enjoyed buying porcelain in an interesting way.