Tea bowl by Kazuhiro Fukushima

At Wad Omotenashi Cafe in Osaka, Japan, I had a wonderful experience of drinking matcha green tea with a tea bowl designed by Kazuhiro Fukushima:

Matcha green tea served in a tea bowl designed by Kazuhiro Fukushima at Wad Omotenashi Cafe. Photographed by Masa Kudamatsu (the author of this article) on 18 December, 2019.

For the uninitiated, it is probably hard to believe that this tea bowl is user-friendly. Below is the actual user experience that I had with this bowl.

Seeing the bowl

When it’s served with matcha tea, the tea bowl looks like a landscape you would see during a rocky mountainous hike when you discover a hidden caldera lake:

Laguna de Quiltoa, a caldera in Ecuador. Photographed by OBLIOT. Image source: National Geographic.

In 16th-century Japan, the tea ceremony was meant to be a visit to a hut in the mountains without actually leaving the busy city. Back then, a small garden in front of the tea house would simulate a mountainous hike. Fukushima’s tea bowl takes up this role in a perfection fashion, right at the heart of Osaka, a metropolis in western Japan.

Holding the bowl

While daydreaming about a mountainous trip, I hold the bowl with my right hand palm on the right side and my left fingers beneath the base. The sticking edge of each side, which have contributed to an imaginary trip to the mountains, nicely fits into the space between my thumb and index finger of each hand.

Following the Japanese tea ceremony convention, I turn the tea bowl clockwise by 90 degrees before drinking the matcha tea inside. Then I notice that the back of the tea bowl also has a sticking edge, more gentle one than those on the side, which fits perfectly with my right hand after the clockwise rotation:

The tea bowl designed by Kazuhiro Fukushima, turned by 90-degrees clockwise. Notice the sticking edge on the right, which was hidden behind before turning the tea bowl. Photographed by Masa Kudamatsu (the author of this article) on 18 December, 2019.

Drinking from the bowl

The rim of the bowl in front of me (after the clockwise turn) narrows a bit to forms a spout-like shape, helping me sip the matcha tea without worrying about the possibility of spillage. Unless you are familiar with the Japanese tea ceremony, you won’t notice this feature of the tea bowl. It’s a sophisticated way of communication between the potter and the user — you could call it snobbish, but in a tasteful way.

All these considerations for the user, hidden in the rocky shape of the bowl, elevate my tea drinking experience into something special.

Have you ever drunk a cup of tea with an imaginary scene of a lake in the mountains and a feel of receiving heart-warming compassion? I have, thanks to this tea bowl.