Chawan

Chawan - ceremonial tea bowl, Raku style, made out of the red clay, white slip, fired at 1000°C.
Chawan, a “mere” bowl used to serve whipped green tea. Vessel to “simply” enjoy a cup of tea. Yet there is much more than meets the eye when we begin to look at chawan and the subtle nuances it embody, the spirit it reveal. Most people who want teabowls for matcha should give preference to bowls whose interior surfaces are smooth. If there are bumps on the interior, they can cause problems when whisking the matcha. The bowl can be gripped easily. Why does this matter? The tea host needs to be able to pour the rinse water out of the bowl one-handedly, by placing the left thumb on the lip and the other fingers within the ring of the foot. A foot that is too shallow, or awkwardly made in some way, is to be avoided because there is a very real danger of dropping the bowl and damaging it. Even if you are not interested in tea ceremonies, there is one more consideration. Firstly, the foot should be being level and stable (you don’t want the bowl to rock while you’re whisking!). The dimensions of the bowl are quite appropriate. The reasons for these dimensions is so that the whisk has enough room to “work” inside the bowl without actually splashing about too much.
The material basis of the bowl contains of the red Lithuanian clay white slip, - the most natural materials. The glazes are safe, certified factory made. Right after firing, the hot bowl was thrown into the wood sawdust. During the contact with hot bowl, the burning sawdust causes the reduction reaction. As the result of this reduction some the shades appears on the glazes. Also, because of the sharp change of the temperatures the hundreds of micro-cracks appears on the surface of the glaze. These cracks fulfills with micro-particles of the soot of burning sawdust. After all you can see the exciting ornaments that reminds the slightly cracked material. This always makes an illusory impression of fragility and delicacy.
I would recommend to avoid to keep the acidic liquids like wine, fruit juice, sour products or pickles in the bowl for longer period. The bowl is perfectly good for tea, especially Matcha tea.
W 12 cm
H 8 cm
This piece is hand thrown raku version of ceramic bowls are just considerably strong, and they too can break from mishandle.
Every item is 100% handmade by me and some of them can be recognized in specialized tea shops of London, Tokyo and Vilnius.