Why Boseong, and a pot that is said to breathe

Korean beauty, the writer says, can be called a beauty of nature, and nature here has been the background and the stage for art. The question of the visit was how that beauty shows itself in onggi, the earthenware whose Korean name also points to a jar, a dok.

The writer went to Miryeok onggi in Boseong to watch the work with their own eyes, to follow the making of a water vessel as far as the drying, and to see what kiln the house uses. Foreign visitors, the notes add, have often called Korea a country of onggi, so the writer came ready to look for a Korean sense of form in the round pot itself.

Korean food, the notes say, leans on fermentation — doenjang, gochujang, soy sauce, even kimchi. Onggi is described as a living pot, with fine holes that let air through, so food can ripen instead of rot, and keep its taste. Among stainless steel, plastic, and costly imports, the writer presents Miryeok ware from Boseong as a pot said to be harmless to the body and able, in this claim, to keep food fresh for a long time. That claim stays as the notes word it.

Clay, a local beating method, and a glaze of pine ash

The notes say the workshop has kept a traditional method for three hundred years, through nine generations, making each pot by hand and finishing it with a natural glaze. No starting year is given for that span, and none is added here. Pine logs, which hold their temperature for a long time, are used in the firing.

Good clay is said to matter most. The glaze, called ash-water, is made from medicinal earth that holds iron, mixed with ash-water from burned pine. Fine holes in the surface, the notes say, let air through, so gochujang or soy sauce stored year after year does not spoil, and the pot is even credited with a kind of natural cleaning. The yellowish-brown body appears, the writer adds, when the ash is not too strong — ash from lighter woods, grass, or soybean stalks — with pine and chestnut used as leaf mold.

The making is slow. Clay is given water, beaten again and again, sliced thin to take out impurities, flattened, and raised on the wheel, the base and the wall joined. The local method is a coil-and-beat technique: a long paddle and a fist-shaped beater with a comb pattern strike the pot into shape, the surface is smoothed, the rim is finished, and a little pattern is added.

A kiln on a slope of about twenty degrees

The visit also set out to compare three kilns often used for this ware: a seolchang kiln, a sloping fire-box kiln, and a jodae-bultong kiln. The sloping kiln, the notes say, sits at about twenty degrees, yet pots can still be stacked tightly, with supports at the side, lids set on jars and turned upside down, and smaller vessels inverted between them.

Dipped in the glaze and fired, the ware is said to keep the usual virtues of onggi, including a ‘bio’ effect the notes name without further official backing. That wording stays as the writer’s claim.

The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student visit to Miryeok onggi in Boseong, South Jeolla, on method, glaze, and kilns.
2. A claim of nine generations over three hundred years, left as the notes word it, without a starting year.
3. A local coil-and-beat method, a glaze of iron-rich earth and pine ash, and a sloping kiln of about twenty degrees.

Last updated: 14 November 2026