The unofficial/official HAGI topic!

[Chip]

SO 13 "Tempest" with Kenji kyusu. Yutaka Midori in both.

[OhJungMin]

Damn, I love your tea pot! Tea pots with ginormous handles rock

[the_economist]

Damn, I love your tea pot! Tea pots with ginormous handles rock

+1. its very dramatic

[kymidwife]

LOL Chip... I solemnly swear that coffee never has and never WILL touch my Hagi.

[AdamMY]

My "Dynamic Deishi Sencha Set"

[Chip]

Nice Deishi grouping, Adam!

Damn, I love your tea pot! Tea pots with ginormous handles rock

+1. its very dramatic

While the handle is substantial, it is not as substantial as the photo indicates ... angle of the pot in the photo makes it look bigger than real life.

[OhJungMin]

Still, love the handle!
Btw, what is that nice shelf in the background? Looks like that's where you keep all of your teawear... Can we get a better look of what you got in there?

[nickE]

Btw, what is that nice shelf in the background? Looks like that's where you keep all of your teawear... Can we get a better look of what you got in there?

I agree

We need a shot of all the wares!

[Chip]

Btw, what is that nice shelf in the background? Looks like that's where you keep all of your teawear... Can we get a better look of what you got in there?

I agree

We need a shot of all the wares!

Thanks!

And I will work on the shelf photo.

[Drax]

So many beautiful photos. Thanks to everybody as always for posting!

Today, I bring you photos of a cup from the Bird Cloud...

I'll start with a blurry side shot.



Then move to a slightly better top-down shot.



I managed to figure out how to do extreme close-ups, so here's a shot of the bubbly inside of the cup.



And finally, a close-up shot of the outside edge near the bottom, where the light blue glaze pools...



Noutomi Chouun (納富　鳥雲）。

[iannon]

Sweet Drax! i've been looking for a nice Choun..where did you pick that up..if its not a secret?

[Drax]

Thanks! It's definitely not a secret, but it's certainly a bit of work.

I picked it up while hunting down a Japanese silver kettle. I ended up going to Yahoo Japan, where apparently their auction sites are equivalent to eBay.

Anyway, you have to have a Japanese bank account to bid (for payment transfer). And I'd say about 90% of auctions will not ship overseas. So enter third-party bidding sites. I used Rinkya, as it seemed well-established.

All I can say is, if you decide to go this route, be sure you understand the FEES. Holy cow. The sites all do fees slightly differently, and depending on the price range of stuff you're shooting for, one can be better than the other. For example, Rinkya really sucks if you're looking to buy a 1100 yen item (:

Also another note of caution... Yahoo Japan auctions often have a time-extension mechanism. So if somebody bids in the last 5 minutes, it'll tack on 10 minutes to the auction. Reduces sniping, but can get annoying.

[iannon]

hmm.thanks! experimenting now...looks tough!

[Drax]

Yeah, I was not satisfied with Rinkya's search enginge. I could never find anything using English, so I do all my searching directly on the Japanese site in Japanese.

Hey Chip -- if I were to come up with a list of Japanese tea-terms (listing Japanese and English) for reference, 1) would that be useful? and 2) if so, where would be the best forum to post it?

[OhJungMin]

Yeah, I was not satisfied with Rinkya's search enginge. I could never find anything using English, so I do all my searching directly on the Japanese site in Japanese.

Hey Chip -- if I were to come up with a list of Japanese tea-terms (listing Japanese and English) for reference, 1) would that be useful? and 2) if so, where would be the best forum to post it?

Drax,
that's a great idea!
I'm still lost in all the names and terms when it comes to Japanese tea culture.
Please, educate us!