Japanese traditional earthware sake cups

What kind of drinking ware when you taste sake? Just like a wine glass or beer cup, the kind of the sake cups (guinomi/choko) make the taste different. It is due to the materials, shapes, and even colors.

The feature of the Hagi ware is “shibui” when I express it with a Japanese word. It is low-keyed and aesthetic. Because the pottery was born from the spirits of “wabi” and “sabi” at the tea ceremony.

They don’t have flowery colors and patterns like Imari-yaki or Kutani-yaki, or glitter like an Edo-kiriko. But they have unique shapes and subtly changing colors on the surfaces. You would grow attached to the only one sake cup.

And the different shapes also give you its characteristic feeling when you hold it and put to your mouth.

Traditional pottery Hagi ware

Origin

During the Age of Civil Wars, the high‐powered daimyos, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) became the patron of Sen-no Riyu (1522-1591).

He established the Japanese tea ceremony and pursued the idea of “wabi” and “sabi”. And Mōri Terumoto (1553-1625) also has the association with the great tea master. He had often thought to create a new pottery for tea bowls.

From 1592 to 1598, the Japanese armies invaded the Korean Peninsula by the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Though the invasion fell through, the daimyos including Terumoto taken the Korean pottery from the country to Japan. Because the Korean ceramic were most popular for the tea ceremony.

The feudal lord of Hagi Domain Mōri Terumoto treated the potteries Lee Shakuko and Lee Kei (brother) with hospitality and make them create a pottery of Hagi. It was the origin of Hagi-yaki.

Features

The texture of a Hagi ware is soft and plump. Most of the wares don’t have painting. They express the beauty with only the shapes and the colors and patterns of the clay and glaze.

The craftsmen of the Hagi ware mix three soil, Mishima (red), Daido (gray), and Mitake (white). And they mainly use the loquat color glaze or white bush clover color glaze.

The more you use it the more they change the colors. That is called as “various changes of Hagi ware”.

See other pages of Hagi-yaki

If the sake cups get cracked…