“A tokkuri that shows that everlasting beauty can be made in a simple form
when the potter's technique and spirit are aligned in a Zen way. ”

Robert Yellin, www.e-yakimono.ne

Introduction

Chawan

Guinomi

Tokkuri

Bizen

Oribe

More Japanese

American Bowls

Other

Acoma

 

Figure 1: Bizen tokkuri. The light colored areas on the top lip look like nicks or chips but they are the lighter colored glaze, similar in color to the specs you see in the side.

Figure 2: Ki-Seto tokkuri by Kagami Shukai. HIs yellow glaze is very special and Robert Yellin reports that Kato Takuro used to get his Yellow Seto glaze from Kagami Shukai. Unfortunately Kagami san recently passed away.

Figure 3: Oribe tokkuri which I purchased in San Francisco, no box, no idea of the potter.

Figure 4: Shigaraki Tokkuri by Takahashi Kozo. The colors and texture of this tokkuri are vvery nice.

Figure 5: Daichibin 抱瓶, an Okanawan style.

Figure 6: Daichibin, an Okanawan style

Figure 7: Another style of Okinawan tokkuri

Figure 8: Akai shuki, i.e. sake untensils. These are for special holidays in our family.

Figure 9: An interesting sake container purchased at the Seto Pottery Festival.

Figure 10: An interesting sake containerwith a dragon. This one is good for a lot of people.

Figure 11: This is a small tokkuri purchased in Seto. I have never used it because it is too small for me, however it is visually fun.

Figure 12: A production sake bottle the kind you might find in a restaurant except that its hand made, hand brush strokes very thick and heavy and on the bottom is stamped “Made in Occupied Japan.”

Figure 12: An Oribe production sake bottle, the kind you might find in a restaurant.

Tokkuri are the container from which sake is served. It gets its name from the tok-tok sound that is made when sake is poured from the tokkuri into the guinomi. Sake is poured from the bottle into tokkuri and then a small pot with water in it is brought to a boil and the tokkuri is placed in the pot and the sake is heated up.

However, not all sake is served warm. Some is served cold or at room temperature. In fact I have often read that cheaper sake was warmed to mask its lack of quality.

Here are some examples of tokkuri I use at home and some Okinawan sake containers that I do not often use but are interesting and fun.

Tokkuri come in a variety of shapes.

http://esake.com/Knowledge/TOKKURI/tokkuri.html