What is a chawan? The Japanese tea bowl, part by part
By Mio.KShare
A chawan is a tea bowl: the bowl that matcha is whisked in and drunk from. In English it is usually called a matcha bowl. It is wider and lower than a mug, has no handle, and stands on a small ring of a foot, because it is made to be held in two hands and to give a bamboo whisk room to move.
The short answer: chawan means "tea bowl" in Japanese (茶碗). It is almost always ceramic, around 12 cm across and 7 to 8 cm tall for thin tea, with a wide opening, a flat-bottomed well inside for whisking, and a foot ring underneath. The same word also means an ordinary rice bowl in everyday Japanese, so in tea it is often called a matcha-jawan to be clear.
I study tea in Tokyo, in the Urasenke school. What follows is how the bowl is described in the tea room, part by part, and what it is made of.
What the word means
The two characters are 茶, tea, and 碗, bowl. Over time the word came to mean any ceramic bowl, and today a Japanese family will call the bowl they eat rice from their chawan without a thought of tea. When people want to be precise they say matcha-jawan, a bowl for matcha. So if you are shopping in Japan and the bowl you are shown is small, deep and made for rice, that is why.
The parts of a chawan
Most of the names come from what happens to the bowl during a tea preparation. Once you know them, you notice where a bowl was made for the hand and where it was made for the eye.
| Part | Japanese | Where it is |
|---|---|---|
| Rim | kuchizukuri | The lip you drink from. It may be level or rise and fall |
| Cloth line | chakin-zure | Just below the rim, where the thumb rests when the bowl is wiped with the linen cloth |
| Whisk wall | chasen-zure | The inside wall the whisk touches as you make the tea |
| Inside | mikomi | The whole interior, literally "the part you look into" |
| Tea pool | chadamari | The small hollow at the center of the inside, where the last of the tea gathers |
| Body and waist | dō, koshi | The outer wall, and the lower curve where it turns toward the foot |
| Foot | kōdai | The ring the bowl stands on. Often left unglazed, so you see the bare clay |
The foot is worth turning the bowl over for. It is where the potter's hand shows most plainly, and on many bowls it is the only place you see the clay itself. On the Mino-yaki bowl I sell, the black glaze stops just above the foot and leaves a band of pale cream clay underneath.
What chawan are made of
Ceramic, nearly always. Most are stoneware or a soft, low-fired earthenware, and most are glazed. Porcelain bowls exist but are less common. Wood and lacquer are used for other tea utensils, but not usually for the bowl you whisk in.
The kind of ceramic usually goes by where it was made. Tea people have an old saying, ichi Raku, ni Hagi, san Karatsu: first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu.
- Raku (Kyoto): begun in the late sixteenth century by the potter Chōjirō for Sen no Rikyū. Each bowl is shaped by hand rather than thrown on a wheel, then carved, which is why Raku bowls feel soft-walled and a little uneven.
- Hagi (Yamaguchi): soft bowls with a thin glaze. Tea seeps in through tiny pores over the years and slowly changes the color, which tea people call the seven changes of Hagi.
- Karatsu (Saga): plain, earthy bowls, often with simple brushed decoration.
Mino, in Gifu, is the other name you will meet constantly. It is the largest pottery region in Japan, and the black Seto-guro, white Shino and green Oribe bowls all come from that area. Many of the everyday chawan sold today are Mino.
Whether you need one at all is a fair question; I answer it in do you need a matcha bowl.
What makes a bowl a chawan, and not just a bowl
Three things, mostly. It is wide enough for the whisk to move quickly from side to side without your knuckles hitting the wall. The inside has a flattish floor rather than a deep point, so the tea and the whisk meet properly. And it is low and heavy enough to sit still while you whisk and to be held in two hands. Many bowls look like a chawan from the outside and fail on the first point; the whisk hits the sides and the foam never comes. I go through size and shape in how to choose a matcha bowl.
The rest is taste: the color under the green of the tea, the weight in the hand, and the season (the quiet, worn look many people love in a bowl is what wabi sabi means). Tea rooms change bowls through the year, with shallow, open bowls in summer and taller, narrower ones that hold the heat in winter.
Questions I get asked
What is a matcha bowl called?
A chawan, which means tea bowl in Japanese. To be precise, people say matcha-jawan, because chawan alone can also mean a rice bowl.
What are chawan made of?
Ceramic, usually stoneware or a low-fired earthenware, and usually glazed. Raku, Hagi, Karatsu and Mino are among the best-known kinds.
How big is a chawan?
A bowl for thin tea is usually about 11 to 13 cm across and 7 to 8 cm tall. Wide enough for the whisk is what matters most.
What is the foot of a chawan called?
The kōdai. It is the ring the bowl stands on, often left unglazed so the clay shows.
Does the chawan matter?
Its width and inside shape matter, because they decide whether you can whisk a good foam. Its maker and price matter far less for a bowl you use every day.
Where this fits
If you are choosing your first bowl, start with how to choose one, then why prices run from a few dollars to thousands. The bowl I sell is the black Mino-yaki chawan, about 12.5 cm across, with a small pouring lip. For how to hold it once the tea is made, see do you drink matcha out of the bowl.
Written by Mio.K, who chooses everything in this shop by hand in Japan.