Made in Kyoto, Japan by Shoraku kiln 松楽

Aka Raku or red Raku ware is a style of Raku ware which gets its colour from the red clay it’s made from. Real Japanese Raku ware like this bowl are fired at very low temperatures for short periods of time so the clay is extremely porous and delicate. It is recommended that these bowls are only used for tea, and washed carefully by hand. 

Japanese Raku ware is considered one of the best tea wares for matcha tea ceremony. Raku bowls are made without a potters wheel by hand building and carefully scraping away excess clay. The bowls are glazed with either clear glaze for red Raku or black glaze for black Raku.

The production of Raku ware dates back to the formalization of the tea ceremony by Sen no Rikyu, a Buddhist monk often credited as the father of the tea ceremony. Rikyu commissioned a roof tile maker named Chojiro to make tea bowls to his specifications that would best suit his wabi sabi aesthetic values. Raku bowls are very simple looking and often unadorned but with subtle distorted but natural shapes. Japanese Raku ware continues to be produced by the Raku family (currently on its 15th generation) or by branch kilns that had studied under the Raku family.