April 30, 2025
Visiting Yakuno
In the practice of kintsugi, urushi (natural lacquer) is an essential material. While the gold or silver often catches the eye, it is urushi that actually joins, shapes, strengthens, and brings the repair to a beautiful finish.
For me, I still find it a challenging material to handle—it can cause skin irritation when touched with bare hands, and managing it properly requires constant care. I often find myself at a loss while working with it. Hoping to build a more personal connection with this material, I decided to visit one of its sources during a trip home to Kyoto.
Japan has twelve regions known for producing urushi, and one of them is the Tamba area in the northern part of Kyoto Prefecture. Within this area lies Yakuno, a town in Fukuchiyama City, which has long been known for its production of Tamba urushi. Despite facing challenges like a declining number of urushi trees and successors, the craft continues to be quietly passed down.
I was guided by Kosuke Yamauchi, a skilled urushi tapper. Though he originally studied lacquer art at university, he gradually became interested in the raw material itself. Discovering the decreasing number of urushi trees in this region, he decided to become a producer ten years ago. Since then, he has been working to preserve and pass down the urushi-tapping techniques unique to Tamba.
He explained that they have planted over 2,000 urushi trees so far. He has carefully researched and tested various soil conditions, drainage, and growing environments. Although some trees have been lost to deer and disease, around 1,800 still remain. His goal is to plant 100 new trees each year. In 2024, he was able to tap sap from 12 trees.
Urushi trees require patience. It takes about 10 to 15 years after planting before they can be tapped. After a single season of tapping, the tree is cut down. However, new shoots—called hikobae—sprout from the remaining roots. This regenerative cycle, known as bōga kōshin (coppicing), allows the same root to produce new trees three to four times.
There are two main ways to propagate urushi trees: by root division or by seed. Root division produces genetically identical clones, allowing for more stable production, but it also poses a risk of losing entire populations to disease. Growing from seed takes longer, but adds genetic diversity. Mr. Yamauchi uses both methods to balance these risks.
Not all land is suitable for growing urushi trees. Like agriculture, the soil’s water retention and drainage must be just right. The area was once home to satoyama—traditional Japanese rural landscapes—where people practiced small-scale farming and urushi tapping for cash income. With industrialization, these lands were abandoned. Today, Mr. Yamauchi rents former farmland at low cost and works steadily to restore it.
He is also exploring agroforestry practices, planting not only lacquer trees but also shiitake logs and other species to help regenerate the satoyama ecosystem and increase biodiversity.
The urushi tapping season runs from late June to October, with the best yield typically occurring between the end of the rainy season and mid-August. A single tree yields about 300 grams of sap per season. Traditional tools such as bark-stripping sickles, planes, spatulas, and urushi tubes are used—each supporting the precise work required. (It is said that there is only one remaining craftsman in Japan who can produce these tools.)
Even after being cut down, urushi trees are not wasted. In Tamba, the wood is chipped and used for natural dyeing, known as urushi-zome. Tamba urushi is said to have a slow drying time, pale color, and excellent spreadability.
I purchased a tube of raw urushi harvested in 2022 and am looking forward to using it in future kintsugi work.
The kintsugi process typically takes two to three months to complete. But the urushi that reaches my hands comes from a tree that took 10 to 15 years to mature. After just one season of tapping, that tree is cut down and enters a new cycle of growth. As I continue my work, I hope to carry with me a quiet respect for those who patiently nurture these trees—over years and seasons—within the rhythm of the forest.
