A Tea Addict's Journal

Tenmoku chawan

November 4, 2009 · 6 Comments

Haven’t posted any teaware porn for a while, so here goes

I love this bowl.  The only flaw is that the brown colour on the exterior is probably a tad bit too much.  These bowls are great for matcha, because their dark colour provides a sharp relief for the lightness of the tea.  The Japanese then adopted it wholesale and kept using them, while Chinese moved on from these to lighter coloured bowls because taste in tea changed over time.  They won’t be any good making tea that is brewed, because the colours won’t show properly, but when whisked, that’s a totally different story.

Categories: Objects · Old Xanga posts
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6 responses so far ↓

  • Anonymous // November 4, 2009 at 9:07 am | Reply

    How old is that piece? It’s very beautiful!

  • Anonymous // November 4, 2009 at 3:14 pm | Reply

    Beautiful… I love how you can see the viscosity of the glaze in the ‘drip’ at the bottom.

  • osososososos // November 4, 2009 at 4:23 pm | Reply

    A very nice bowl indeed. Hurray for Fujian potters.

  • Spotbunni // November 5, 2009 at 7:16 am | Reply

    Absolutely gorgeous! I love when the depth of the bowl’s color contrasts with the matcha. My favorite bowl is primarily a deep gray.

  • Anonymous // November 5, 2009 at 4:17 pm | Reply

    Nice Hare’s fur tenmoku.

    It’s a tricky glaze to do, even with electric kiln’s, and although I’ve tried, I’ve so far failed 🙁
    What happens, is the red iron oxide decomposes in the heat and the oxygen bubbles through the surface and pop’s.
    The bubble causes the contrasting color at the surface, and then must flow down the sides without dripping off.
    The streatched bubbles are what cause the streaking, and the flow re-seals the pinholes.
    Potters also kinda like those drips, as it adds movement to an otherwise symmetric piece.
    It’s really kinda hard to control well, so your bowl is really quite nice overall.

  • MarshalN // November 5, 2009 at 9:55 pm | Reply

    I like how the bowl looks really deep when you look at it from the top. No other kind of bowl does that.

    How old? I don’t know. Seller claims it’s from Song, but they all do.

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