A single lacquered bowl leaving this workshop will have been touched by at least three different specialists, each responsible for one stage of a process that hasn't fundamentally changed in over a century.
Every layer of urushi lacquer must cure in a humidity-controlled room before the next can be applied — a process that cannot be rushed with heat or chemical accelerants without compromising the finish's depth and durability.
"People ask why we don't speed it up. The lacquer decides the schedule, not us." — Workshop director, fourth-generation lacquer house
Demand has outpaced the workshop's small output for years, and the director says expanding capacity would mean training new apprentices for the better part of a decade before they could work unsupervised — a timeline few businesses would accept today.
