Hanshi Hakeme Asagao-gata Senchawan - 60ml
AsahiyakiThis elegant senchawan (small teacup for sencha) is thrown in an open asagao-gata (morning glory/conical) shape from Asahiyaki’s signature hanshi (燔師) clay, dug from Shirakawa and Oriiyama in and around Uji. Coated in a simple transparent glaze, the warm tones, hue gradients, and spots all come from the clay itself as it is rapidly heated to around 1400°C in Asahiyaki’s wood-fired climbing kiln. The outside is decorated with a simple brushstroke of slip (liquid clay), a technique known as hakeme.
The morning glory shape is favoured in Uji where the tea traditionally has a lighter colour, as the wide lip allows for quicker cooling of the tea and for easy drinking, while the narrowing of the shape towards the foot concentrates the tea, making the colour of the tea easier to see.
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 teacup was made by the skilled craftsmen at the Asahiyaki studio and wood-fired in their climbing kiln.
Made in Japan. Ships from the United States.
Width: 8.5 cm (3.3 in)
Height: 5 cm (2 in)
Capacity: 60 ml
In modern usage, gohon or gohonte (御本・御本手) typically refers to an array of pink or white spots against a grey or beige background. This effect typically occurs within the clay itself as bubbles or imperfections within the clay rise to the surface in the kiln. It gets its name from the order forms and catalogue books (御本 - gohon) that tea masters used in the Azuchi-Momoyama period to order tea bowls from potters and kilns in Korea. Many of those gohon chawan (御本茶碗) had these spots, hence the name gohonte. They often appear on many other Korean chawan styles, especially kohiki and totoya chawan.
Hakeme (刷毛目 - brush stroke), also known as guiyal in Korean, is a Korean slip decoration technique that was developed at the same time and at the same kilns as mishima in the 15th-16th centuries. Here, white slip is simply applied with a coarse brush (hake) which leaves rough, visible strokes with a lot of expressive character.
This early hakeme seems to primarily be a functional way of applying slip to the piece, with the visible brush strokes being a happy accident. When the slip is brushed across the entire piece, except for the foot, it is called mujihakeme (無地刷毛目-plain hakeme). [yes, the same Muji as the clothes brand] Since porcelain was banned for commoners in Joseon Korea, this was likely a way for the general populace to obtain white ceramics.
The original hakeme chawan likely belong to that first generation of kōrai chawan, but like mishima bowls, many were later designed and ordered by Japanese teaists.
These later bowls tended to use hakeme as decoration rather than a means to apply a white coating. As such, there were often fewer brush strokes and these were often coarser and more deliberately expressive. In fact, today it is most common to find hakeme that is merely a single brushstroke, almost as an application of the zen enso onto pottery.
Through its history hakeme was often combined with mishima. After all, brushing was how the slip was applied before it was scraped off!
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.