The Imari sets of the teapots and tea cups you can buy at Amazon

For drinking Japanese green tea, it is fun to buy a teapot (kyusu) or tea cup (yunomi) what you like at those times. But if you have a unified tea set, you would feel more attachment to them and never have a trouble to serve green tea for a guest.

Especially, the colorful and glazed Japanese tea sets make your tea time festive mood. The traditional porcelain Imari-yaki (Arita-yaki) has been loved all over the world since 17th century.

History of Imari (Arita)-yaki

Imari-yaki and Arita-yaki belong to the Japanese porcelain. Though the people overseas would know the name of “Imari” rather than “Arita”, you may think that they are the almost same thing.

The history of the Arita-yaki started by the Korean potter Yi Sam-pyeong in the early 17th century. It is also the first production of the porcelain in Japan. Yi Sam-pyeong made the ascending kiln in Arita area, Saga Prefecture. So, they call the porcelain Arita-yaki (Arita ware).

By beginning the shipping to the other region in the country or abroad, they carried the Arita-yaki products from the Imari Port. That’s why the people in other country call it Imari.

Today, we call Imari-yaki and Arita-yaki according to each producing district.

The high-quality soil of the districts and 1300 ℃ baking make the porcelains hard. Though the products seem fragile, it has an excellent strength of the material. Furthermore, the Potters stone contained much feldspar produces a fine-grained surface.

Imari roughly consisted of three types, Koimari (Kinrande), Kakiemon, and Nabeshima. But when you buy an unified tea set of Imari ware at Amazon, you can find Koimari and Nabeshima.

When your pottery get cracked… you can repair it with “Kintsugi”.

What is Kintsugi repair?

Imari Japanese tea sets on Amazon

Koimari style

First of all, you would have your eyes attracted towards the flowery coloring. The delicate design and luxurious gold color are the features only Koimari style has.

Nabeshima style

The daimyo of Nabeshima domain (today’s Saga Prefecture) used the type of Arita ware. The style has three kindes. First, Ironabeshima which only has three colors, red, yellow, and green. Next, Sometsuke is just used indigo (gosu). And finaly, Seiji has a pale green surface. It is a simple and refined Imari.