Learn the name of this vessel: "Katakuchi" (most referred to as "the matcha spouted tea bowl".  In the world of Japanese pottery, katakuchi is typically used for Japanese sake or cooked food.  goenne.livemissioned Karatsu-style Yasuo Tominaga to hand-throw a katakuchi bowl for making matcha green tea — a form that has taken on a life of its own in the global matcha cafe scene, and that we wanted to see made by someone who actually understands Japanese tea ceramics from the inside.
 
Hand-thrown by Tominaga-san, exclusive for Goenne Japan.
The combination of glaze and techniques makes each bowl un-replicable.  Each one has its own flavor and soul.  This become a tea bowl you will treasure for life. 
 
Iraho Glaze · 伊羅保釉
Iraho is an unmistakably yellow-brown matte glaze with roots in Korean ceramic tea bowls — brought to Japan and refined within the wabi-cha world precisely because of its refusal to behave predictably. During firing the glaze runs, pools, and thins. The result is what tea practitioners call 景色 (keishiki) — "scenery" — a surface that reads differently in different light, different seasons, different hands. No two pieces come out the same, one of the reason why wabi-cha practitioners love it. 
 
Kiretsu · 亀裂
Kiretsu is a traditional Japanese pottery technique — found across many pottery regions including Bizen — in which the clay surface is scraped and pushed to create an unpredictable dry-cracking texture. Western audiences often reach for "wabi-sabi" to describe it. What it actually is: the honest record of a hand working clay. Tominaga-san uses it as one of several traditional methods to give a piece what he calls its soul — an unintended touch that no mold or machine can reproduce.
 
The kiretsu texture sits beneath the Iraho glaze. Where the glaze runs thin, the fissure lines show through. Where it pools, it collects along them. Every combination is different.
 
Kusenaoshi (tea whisk holder)
A modern development of tea-whisk holder.  Unlike majority of the tea whisk holders which are mass-produced by mold.  The kusenaoshi whisk holder included in the set is made by the same hands with matching Iraho glaze.
 
OUR COMMITMENT
One set at a time. It is how we understand the chawan tradition.  What makes each tea bowl soulful is because the specific day, the clay, the kiln, the maker's mind were different. When this set is placed, the next commission begins separately. There is currently one set available.
 
THE POTTERY ARTIST 
Yasuo Tominaga · 冨永保雄 · 玄洋窯 Genyou Kiln, Fukuoka
Tominaga-san has worked in the Karatsu ceramic tradition since 1969, trained under Eguchi Sōzan in Karatsu. His work has been selected for the Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition and recognized across five decades of national and regional exhibition. Associate member, Japan Kogei Association. He has described his career as years spent searching for an encounter between specific soil and himself.
 
Karatsu-style is know to be one of the most preferred style of pottery for Wabi-cha Japanese tea ceremony.   Potters are trained not only on techniques, signature styles and glazes, but also on their specific sense of aesthetics in wabi-sabi and rustic beauty. 
 
Care instructions on the Product Care page.
 
MADE in JAPAN
SHIPS from JAPAN