Arita is a fine spot for porcelain pots -- and cups, vases, buttons, wall sockets and even denture-holders. Need a cartwheel-sized ashtray (useful at Japanese banquets), or a 1.8-meter-high urn to brighten up a castle somewhere? You'll find them in all shapes, sizes and colors in this peaceful town, nestled in a narrow valley in Saga Prefecture, Kyushu. Arita transforms into a noisy market every Golden Week (April 29-May 5), when hordes of porcelain enthusiasts descend on its giant ceramics fair.
Arita's porcelain products have a 400-year history, the oldest in Japan. The term Arita ware often refers to the town's oldest styles: Ko-Imari, Nabeshima and Kakiemon ware, some of Japan's most valued brands today. Their story begins after Arita's lord Nabeshima Naoshige returned in 1598 from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea, bringing a skilled craftsman, Ri Sampei, to kick-start porcelain production. Japan's pottery history dates back as far as 12,000 years, but technically advanced, beautiful porcelain wares were long imported from China and Korea, not manufactured here.
None of Japan's attempts to master porcelain would have been possible if not for the discovery, within the Nabeshima domain (modern-day Nagasaki and Saga prefectures), of plentiful, high-quality kaolin clay. Nabeshima artisans soon learned to produce beautiful porcelain with blue-and-white underglazing, later featuring the enamel overglazing that allowed for more complex designs. By the mid-1600s Arita ware was snapped up around Japan, taken to Dutch colonies in Indonesia and prized in European palaces, via Nagasaki's trade with Holland.