This plate is unique and rare for its colour and shape.

When the potter Sakamoto Takuma had put the glaze on the plate, it was expected to be green, but the colour turned to red-brown instead. There should be redox reaction in a kiln to get green colour, however there was not enough oxygen when firing and the glaze changed the colour, which is Yoohen.

Why did Yoohen happen then? It is mostly because of the structure of the kiln Sakamoto used. His family have been using the communal kiln with other 4 families in the village and the kiln has 9 chambers. Each chamber gets hot and has air flow in different timing unlike automatically controlled electric ones. The first chamber is tricky space. It easily gets the higher than ideal temperature with strong fire, and less oxygen. It is hard to control even for the veterans. Some potters seem it as challenging and some do as nuisance. Sakamoto always looks it as challenging to create something unique and special when he has a chance to use the first chamber, normally twice a year.

He did not know what his earthworks was going to be and there was a risk that his works would get damaged while the firing process. But he did it. He created this amazing plate.

Another point which makes this plate special is its shape. It is quite flat unlike the other Onta plates and there is no unglazed circle line in the centre of the plate. Normally plates are stacked in the kiln to get fired efficiently but this plate was put together with another plate being upside down. By holding each other by their rims, the two plates got flatter than the other plates. This technique is called Fuchiawase (Fuseawase).

This item is made by Sakamoto Takuma.