A small studio, in the old lacquer district of Kyoto
Tucked behind a lantern-lit street in Higashiyama, our workshop has repaired ceramics the same way for generations — slowly, by hand, with lacquer drawn from trees and gold that never tarnishes.
Founded on a single broken tea bowl
Kintsugi Atelier Hana was founded by Hiroshi Tanaka, whose family has worked in urushi lacquer since his great-grandfather's workshop supplied temples across Higashiyama. As a young apprentice, Hiroshi was asked to restore his own grandmother's tea bowl — cracked in the 1995 earthquake and kept, unrepaired, for over a decade out of fear of losing it entirely.
That single restoration became the studio's founding principle: broken things carry stories worth preserving, not erasing. Today, our small team of craftsmen restores ceramics mailed to us from collectors, families, and gift-givers on every continent.
The hands behind every seam
Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash
Hiroshi Tanaka
Master Craftsman & Founder
Trained in urushi lacquer for over twenty-five years. Hiroshi oversees every assessment and signs each certificate of restoration personally.
Photo by Pew Nguyen on Unsplash
Aiko Mori
Lacquer Specialist
Aiko sources raw urushi from lacquer farms in Iwate, and mixes each batch by hand to match the humidity of the day's work.
Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash
Kenji Okada
Gold Finishing Artisan
Kenji applies the final gold powder and burnishes each seam by hand — a step he describes as "listening to the piece" before touching it.
Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash
Nothing synthetic, nothing rushed
Urushi lacquer — tapped from lacquer trees grown mainly in Iwate and Ibaraki, aged for years before use, and hardened not by heat but by humidity, over weeks in a climate-controlled cabinet.
Gold & silver powder — 24-karat gold dust, applied by brush while the final lacquer coat is still soft, then burnished with a soft deer-hair brush until it holds a quiet, matte shine rather than a mirror gloss.
Time — our only non-negotiable material. A simple crack may cure in six weeks; a shattered piece with missing fragments can take four months, layer by layer.
Read the philosophy behind the practice
On our journal, we write about the history of kintsugi, the concept of wabi-sabi, and the stories behind pieces our clients have trusted us with — a grandmother's teacup, a wedding gift bowl, and more.