Hagi-yaki Katakuchi Matcha Bowl — Soft Pink Crackle Glaze, Pouring Spout

This matcha bowl is Hagi ware (Hagi-yaki) from Yamaguchi Prefecture, one of Japan's most celebrated tea ceramics. Hagi ware was founded in the early 17th century by Korean potters working under the Mōri clan, and it has long been ranked among the finest tea wares, as in the saying Ichi Raku, ni Hagi, san Karatsu (first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu). Hagi is valued for its understated beauty: soft colours, gentle forms and a glaze that changes with use.

This bowl is a katakuchi, a bowl with a single pouring spout, which makes it practical for whisking matcha and then pouring it into cups, or for serving several people from one preparation. 

The glaze shows the soft palette Hagi is known for. A milky white glaze covers a warm, iron-bearing clay, and wherever the glaze thins over the ridges of the throwing rings and along the rim, the clay blushes through in shades of pale pink and lilac.

A fine, allover crackle (kannyū) runs through the glaze inside and out. Hagi clay is traditionally fired at a relatively low temperature, which leaves the body soft and slightly porous. Over years of use, tea gradually seeps into the crackle and slowly shifts the bowl's colour. This effect is known as Hagi no nanabake (the seven transformations of Hagi) and is one of the qualities tea practitioners most appreciate in the ware.

• Origin: Hagi ware (Hagi-yaki), Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan

• Form: Spouted matcha bowl (katakuchi), rounded body with inward-curving rim and hand-formed spout

• Clay: Warm iron-bearing Hagi clay, blushing pink through the glaze and buff-brown at the foot

• Glaze: Milky white glaze with pink-lilac blush where thin; fine allover crackle (kannyū)

• Decoration: No applied motif; pronounced throwing rings on the exterior

• Base: Low foot ring showing buff-brown clay

• Condition: Good secondhand condition. Crackle and a few small pinholes around the spout are characteristic of Hagi glaze. Please see photos for any chips or wear

• Quantity: Single bowl only. The chasen (bamboo whisk) is shown for scale and styling and is not included

• Dimensions: (Ø) approx. 11cm (excluding spout) x (H) approx. 7cm