Asahiyaki
Katakuchi tea bowl

Asahiyaki
Katakuchi tea bowl

Pottery and Tea

Pottery and tea reflect the breath of Japan’s landscapes and seasons, while carrying small stories that extend across the world. For generations, the kiln of Asahiyaki and our tea house have been connected by this bond. On the occasion of replanting Okunoyama Tea Garden—the only surviving one of the historic Uji Shichimeien that we still cultivate—we created a Katakuchi tea bowl.

Shaped to fit snugly in both hands, it can be used both as a matcha bowl and as a Katakuchi serving pottery. Though practical in use, its gentle size and form hold a quiet poetry: recalling the calm of enjoying a matcha latte at home, or the stillness of a traditional tea room.

It is a piece of pottery that encapsulates both the spirit of Japanese tea and the joy it brings to people around the world.

The Story of Development

A Tea Bowl Born from the Tea Trees of Okunoyama Tea Garden

Words by Toshiyuki Matsubayashi, Asahiyaki

Okunoyama Tea Garden is one of the Uji Shichimeien originally designated by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the Muromachi period, and to this day it remains a symbolic tea field of Uji tea. From Horii Shichimeien, who have preserved this historic garden through generations, we received precious tea trees that had been uprooted for replanting.

At Asahiyaki, instead of simply using the wood as firewood, we carefully reduced it to ash and reused it as glaze. Transforming tea-tree ash into glaze requires immense effort, time, and quality control, and achieving a stable glaze tone is exceedingly difficult. This makes it a truly rare endeavor.

A tree that once nurtured tea now shapes the scenery of the pottery in which tea is enjoyed. Within Uji’s natural environment and tea culture, this bowl quietly tells the story of a cycle where nature and people, materials and tools, are interwoven.

Toshiyuki Matsubayashi, Asahiyaki

Asahiyaki

Asahiyaki is a historic pottery kiln located in Uji, Kyoto—the heart of Japan’s tea culture. Situated at the foot of Mt. Asahi, across the Uji River from Byodoin Temple, the kiln has flourished for over 400 years.

Asahiyaki was founded during the Keicho era (late 16th–early 17th century) under the guidance of Kobori Enshu, and is recognized as one of the Seven Kilns of Enshu. The first generation of potters used clay from Mt. Asahi to create tea utensils such as tea bowls and water jars, cherished by tea masters and nobles of the Momoyama and early Edo periods—including Sen no Rikyu and Kobori Enshu himself.

Since then, Asahiyaki has continued its pottery tradition in Uji without interruption. In the late Edo period, the eighth-generation Chobei began producing sencha (green tea) ware, forming the basis of the modern Asahiyaki style.

Nurtured alongside the rich tea culture of Uji, Asahiyaki remains devoted to honoring its heritage while continuing to create pottery that evolves with the tea culture of today.

庵 -Iori- by Horii Shichimeien

Iori is a brand inspired by the idea of “a small tea hermitage, quietly open within modern life.” It gently weaves together the aesthetic spirit of authentic Japanese craftsmanship —honmamon — with our own contemporary sensibilities.

  Guided by the spirit of fueki-ryūkō — the timeless held in harmony with the new — Iori stands softly between Japan and the world, practicality and poetry, breathing a fresh, modern expression into objects nurtured through generations.

  Since our founding in 1879, we have devoted ourselves to the craft of tea. Through this long engagement with tea-making, we have cultivated a spirit — a way of approaching creation, and an aesthetic sensibility rooted in tea culture.

  This spirit forms the foundation of Iori. With it as our quiet backbone, we shape products that gently accompany the cadence of contemporary living.