Oak Ash Glazed Tenmoku-gata Chawan

Name: Oak Ash Glazed Tenmoku-gata Chawan
Brand: Asahiyaki
SKU: US-M416
Price: 148.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Asahiyaki

★★★★★ (3)

$148.00

This small and classy chawan (matcha bowl) is thrown in a classic Tenmoku-gata shape from Asahiyaki’s signature hanshi (燔師) clay, dug from Shirakawa and Oriiyama in and around Uji. The bowl is draped in an oak ash glaze which exhibits subtle shifts in its cool greenish-grey hue along with prominent crazing which will develop further with use. The green along with the black spots come from iron present in the glaze. These natural imperfections and a touch of softness to the formality and stateliness that is typically associated with the tenmoku shape. Adding this rustic touch to a classically elegant form expresses Asahiyaki's signature kirei-sabi aesthetic.

Before using it for the first time, it is recommended to soak the piece in water for 10 minutes. This will dislodge any dust from the clay as well as slow down the natural development of patina in the glaze.

This piece was made by the skilled craftsmen at the Asahiyaki studio and wood-fired in their climbing kiln.

As one of the oldest styles of tea bowl, tenmoku (天目) are considered the most formal and revered tea bowls. Despite being known by their Japanese name, the original Tenmoku bowls came from Song Dynasty China (960–1279). When Japanese monks visited the Buddhist temples of Tian Mu Mountain (天目山 - tian mu zhan in Chinese) and learned about Chinese whisked tea culture, they brought some of their shallow, conical, black-glazed bowls back to Japan, calling them 天目 after the mountain where they encountered them. In modern Japanese, these characters are read as 'tenmoku' which is where we get the name. The original tenmoku bowls are all relatively consistent in shape and size. They have a deep, conical shape with a groove around the lip, and a small foot.

The term 'tenmoku' can be confusing, as it has referred to different aspects of these bowls over the centuries. Originally, 'tenmoku'-style bowls were referred to as chasan (茶盞), with the most esteemed of these being the kensan (建盞): bowls fired in Jianyian Kiln in Fujian. These kensan were further classified into three main glaze types:

-Nogime (禾目- hare’s fur): the most common; streaks of blue or rust red
-Yuteki (油滴 - oil-spot): small spots against a dark backdrop
-Yōhen (曜変- glittering change): large silvery spots surrounded by iridescence

The next category of chasan after kensan were the tenmoku: a term originally used to refer to bowls that were like kensan but fired in other kilns in China (or even Japan).

However, over time, the terms evolved and now tenmoku is used as the standard term for all of these conical, dark-glazed bowls, and any bowls made in this style. Confusingly, in addition to the original chawan and imitations of them, the term tenmoku can also refer solely to the shape of these bowls, or their various beautiful, metallic glazes.

Asahi-yaki (朝日焼) are a world-renowned pottery studio located at the foot of Mt. Asahi in Uji. Their founder produced wares for the tea ceremony in the late 16th-early 17th centuries, at the height of chanoyu’s artistic development, and his works were loved by chajin Kobori Enshū (who succeeded Furuta Oribe and Sen-no-Rikyū as leading tea master). Since then, Asahi-yaki have continued to make wares that capture Enshū’s aesthetic philosophy of ‘Kirei-Sabi’, which is a more refined take on Rikyū’s ‘Wabi(-sabi)’.

Today, they are headed by 16th generation potter Matsubayashi Hōsai XVI who leads his studio in producing wares for both the Japanese tea ceremony and for the brewing of loose-leaf teas. They continue to use local Uji clay, mined from the surrounding hills, which they call ‘hanshi’. Since the 8th generation head, they also make sencha and gyokuro wares out of porcelain from Kyūshu.