Thinking about a new gaiwan.

[mganz42]

my favorite gaiwan that i use all the time is this one from yunnan sourcing (available in two colors)

i like how it looks and functions. it's also hard to burn yourself.
you may or may not like how thick the gaiwan's material is.

Question: isn't this really more of a shiboridashi than a gaiwan? I have a shib that I bought from Shawn that looks and functions much like this.

[GreenwoodStudio]

It seems as though the use of the word gaiwan has been blurred a bit since folk started using them to brew and decant primarily. I've seen a lot of these spouted pots being called "Easy Gaiwan" that are of course only used to decant. It appears as though the art of drinking directly from a lidded cup or gaiwan has mainly fallen out of favor these days, so when I make them I steer my designs toward customers who are brewing and decanting. Occasionally, I have someone like Thristy who will ask for a gaiwan for drinking directly but it's pretty rare. They are a bit trickier to make because the peices should fit so much more precisely to facilitate so much handling, as has been mentioned. Honestly, I struggle with finding the motivation to make gaiwans in general. They are a good bit of work and there are so many inexpensive, mass-produced options for people that it's hard to compete as a lone artisan. I think the thing that makes it work for me is that I can sometime fill small gaps in the market of what's available commercially, especially in regards to capacity of the gaiwan.

[Peacock]

In Mandarin gaiwan simply means lidded teacup. 盖碗

Shiboridashi and gaiwans might be interchangeable words for the same form of pottery, but I'm not sure what Shiboridashi means when translated into English.

[pedant]

my favorite gaiwan that i use all the time is this one from yunnan sourcing (available in two colors)

i like how it looks and functions. it's also hard to burn yourself.
you may or may not like how thick the gaiwan's material is.

Question: isn't this really more of a shiboridashi than a gaiwan? I have a shib that I bought from Shawn that looks and functions much like this.

contrasting the two, i want to say that shiboridashis tend to be a bit wider and flatter than gaiwans.

[Bok]

Not really, if you look in the past and all the gaiwan designs that have been made, you find almost any shape… in the end it is just a name.

[cnltc345]

The reason why I like the traditional gaiwan is because it is easy for clean up and fast pour when brewing. What do you guys think about the celadon gaiwans?

[JRS22]

In Mandarin gaiwan simply means lidded teacup. 盖碗

Shiboridashi and gaiwans might be interchangeable words for the same form of pottery, but I'm not sure what Shiboridashi means when translated into English.

Gaiwans are designed for whole leaf chinese teas whereas shiboridashi are designed for broken leaf japanese greens. Here is a photo of a Shawn Shib and a Greenwood gaiwan which I believe illustrate the traditional designs and the way that they're designed to filter different size leaves or pieces of leaves.

Those are my nicknames for my pots - they're both from Shawn at Greenwoodstudio.

[Tead Off]

From what I can gather, the word 'shiboridashi' can be translated as 'squeeze out'. In the case of brewing gyokuro, which shiboridashi are traditionally used, I can sort of see how 'squeezing out' can work.

I don't think that gaiwan and shiboridashi are interchangeable words, at least not for me. The conjure images of two different shapes even though neither is 'teapot' shaped and without a handle.

I also wouldn't classify Shawn's piece as you illustrate, as a shiboridashi. I know the terms can get stretched into naming different shapes, but I would never call a gaiwan a hohin, either. Maybe I'm old-fashioned.

[thirst]

Is that really not a shiboridashi? I thought that the difference between shiboridashis and hohins is that the spout of a shiboridashi is an extension of the body while the spout of a hohin is attached to the body, like in a teapot, so in my mind the shiboridashi is like a modified gaiwan, but the hohin is more like a teapot with a short spout and no handle.

I thought that besides the spout with those incisions to hold back the leafs the difference between a gaiwan and a shiboridashi was that the lid of a gaiwan sits on the cup/bowl walls and the lid of a shiboridashi sits on an extra rim, but Hojo does have a shiboridashi where the lid just sits on the cup/bowl wall.

[Tead Off]

I guess what we call things depends on a repeated form that has been given a name. It could be called anything, really. But, for the purposes of communication between people so they can mutually discuss something, there is usually an agreement on terminology. Then there is a gray area.

This item is a gray area to me. It is somewhere between a shiboridashi and a hohin. Nothing wrong with it and artists take liberty to alter forms and create what they want. The only difficulty lies in naming things.

[JRS22]

I'm curious about why you don't consider the pot on the left to be a shiboridashi.

[kyarazen]

they are all houhins 宝瓶

shibo is just a style of houhin.

[Tead Off]

I'm curious about why you don't consider the pot on the left to be a shiboridashi.

Mostly shape as I wrote earlier.

[Noonie]

I'm not a teaware enthusiast, but I own a piece (or two) of various types of tea pots. If they were all made of the same material, I could use almost any of them to brew just about any tea and wouldn't notice a difference in taste. Contrast this to say espresso machines, where different machines with the exact same make/model/year would have a range in differences internally which would affect the outcome: your espresso. Exception with tea might be brewing fukamushi in something like a gaiwan, because it could result in more fines in the cup then if I used a kyusu with a certain filter. That's the great thing about tea ware (and maybe lots of other things), the devotees can get into the minutia, and others can use something simple, functional and affordable in many ways...and at the end of the day everyone is happy