
The surrounding area, including Koriyama City, has long been called "Asakano. When our kiln restarted pottery production in Koriyama City, we named the kiln "Asakano-gama" in reference to the history of the name of the area. We also named our pottery "Asakano-yaki Pottery" in the hope of spreading pottery culture in Koriyama City, which is not a pottery production area, and to make local people familiar with pottery as a new product.
When we first started our business, we used pottery clay imported from other production areas, but shortly thereafter, we learned of the existence of Koriyama's pottery clay. According to what we were told, in the Asaka Plain (Koriyama Basin), where Koriyama City is located, ceramic clay existed throughout the plain under the topsoil.
A roof tile manufacturer had also tried to use this clay to make pottery, but it did not produce anything. The clay was found to contain a lot of sand and high iron content, but experience had shown that it could be made into something by removing the sand. After that, we made several prototypes and developed the clay into the present clay that can be used for mass-production of products.
Usually, pottery production areas are developed because of the abundance of raw pottery clay, and there are many business establishments in the area. Then, there are "clay makers" to supply the refined ceramic clay. However, Koriyama City is not a pottery production area, so there is no clay makers. Therefore, Asakano-gama refines its own clay by hand. Although it is not possible to refine a large amount of clay by hand, we hope to continue to exist as an authentic local pottery by using locally produced clay.