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A hand built red raku matcha bowl by Shoraku Kiln with vertical ridges, a wide irregular form, and a glaze in warm coral, pale blush, and soft grey tones with crystalline drip edges at the lower body, photographed against a white background.Sonnet 4.6
Red Raku Matcha Bowl
Red Raku Matcha Bowl
Red Raku Matcha Bowl
Shoraku Kiln

Red Raku Matcha Bowl

Sale price$338.00

Red raku occupies a different register from its black counterpart. Where black raku draws inward, red raku is open and warm, its terracotta tones a direct expression of the clay body characteristic of the raku tradition. This chawan by Shoraku Kiln is hand-built in that tradition, its form wide and gently irregular, with vertical ridges running from rim to foot that give the surface a rhythm without imposing symmetry. The glaze moves across the exterior in passages of warm coral, pale blush, and soft grey, the transitions unplanned and unrepeatable, pooling in places and thinning in others where the ridges have pushed it aside. Where the glaze has dripped and cooled on the lower body, it leaves a crystalline edge that records the exact moment it stopped moving. It is a bowl that carries its making visibly, and is more considered for it.

This bowl is accompanied by OG Matcha Kakitsubata from Osada Tea, selected to complete the tea experience.
A hand built red raku matcha bowl by Shoraku Kiln with vertical ridges, a wide irregular form, and a glaze in warm coral, pale blush, and soft grey tones with crystalline drip edges at the lower body, photographed against a white background.Sonnet 4.6
Red Raku Matcha Bowl Sale price$338.00

Meet the Artisan

Shoraku Kiln

Shoraku Kiln was founded in 1905 in Kyoto, when Sasaki Kichinosuke left the city's central district and established a Raku ware kiln at the foot of Kiyomizudera Temple, dedicating it entirely to the production of tea bowls for chanoyu. Over the following century, the kiln drew the personal guidance of some of Japan's most significant cultural and spiritual figures, including Daitoku-ji head priests Goto Zuigan and Fukutomi Settei, and the religious leader Deguchi Onisaburo, who bestowed upon the kiln the name Shoraku, a name carrying the quiet weight of that trust.

The kiln later relocated to Kameoka in Kyoto Prefecture, a town wrapped in mountain mist whose stillness the Sasaki family regards as naturally consonant with the spirit of wabi-cha. Now in its fourth generation, Shoraku Kiln shapes every tea bowl entirely by hand, firing black Raku with glaze ground from Kamo River stone and red Raku at lower temperatures to coax out its characteristically soft warmth. At the heart of the practice is a conviction that a tea bowl should not assert itself, but simply be present, creating stillness and space for the moment of tea to unfold.