Japanese Tea Bowls

Much like Song-era Chinese tea bowls, some Japanese tea bowls were made in a similar style. Here is a Japanese tea bowl, or chawan that can be used in Chanoyu.

In Song China, they really preferred a black ware tea bowl like this, because the black color better brought out the color of the green powdered tea; the colors contrasted quite well. So in Song China, a lot of black ware tea bowls, from the Jian kilns were quite popular. Some had the so-called "rabbit's fur" pattern on the bowl. Of course, Japanese tenmoku tea bowls are also modeled on the teabowls of the famous Jian ware.

Chinese Tea Bowls

Chinese tea bowls became widespread in use during the Song Dynasty. Back then, tea bowls were made nearly everywhere. There were two kinds - fine tea bowls for the noble people, aristocrats, scholars, etc; and tea bowls made for the common people - which were made rather coarsely; though they still had their own charm.

Pictured here are two tea bowls reminiscent of Song-era tea bowls. The shapes are quite distinct. And the texture of the clay, the apparent skill with which they are made is also interesting. Much like in Chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony, Song-style tea used powdered green tea; which would be whisked in a bowl, and drunk straight from the bowl. Although, this style of tea died out in China by the Yuan dynasty.

Tea Bowls

Tea bowls are excellent for drinking tea in the summer, to quench thirst. The wide shape of the bowl makes it ideal to cool the tea off quickly, so that you can drink it faster - and in quantity. A lower-grade of tea is best suited to this drinking method, since it's a waste to gulp down copious amounts of fine tea.

Pictured here is an Arita ware tea bowl from Japan.

Tea Bowl

Drinking tea from a bowl is an interesting concept. Tea bowl use in China dates from the Jin dynasty, or perhaps even earlier. Way back in Chinese history, a bowl served multiple purposes - for eating food, for drinking, etc. It wasn't until the Jin Dynasty that we see specific-use bowls dedicated to tea. But tea bowls were further developed in the Tang Dynasty, and even better developed in the Song Dynasty. Today, in some parts of China, people still drink tea from bowls.

Tea bowls have many shapes and styles, in addition to the place of manufacture, and the type of glaze, or the type of ceramic. So there is plenty to learn about tea bowls.

Tea bowls are used not only in China, along with tea drinking customs that spread to Korea and Japan, so too did the use of tea bowls.

Tea bowls are called "chawan" in Mandarin, or putonghua, which is the spoken language of most Chinese. Tea bowl is called "chawoon" in Cantonese, the language of Chinese living in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hong Kong. The Chinese characters for tea bowl are 茶碗. Interestingly, the same characters are used to write tea bowl in both Korean and Japanese. Although, in Korean, they pronounce tea bowl "dawan", and in Japanese, it's "chawan".