The little blue is indeed stunning. Smaller than I anticipated, it's very refined and delicate. The rough sand clay keeps it from being excessively feminine though.
My sansai is not crackling like several of you are reporting. That might be because I tend to warm my hagi before use? I have two little deishi cups that I do not do a slow warm on, and they both have fine web crackling, both interior and exterior. My SO pieces, when I use them, I prewarm with hot tap water (about 120*) then hot water from the zoji, and I get very little rapid crackling.
My personal opinion is that the undesireable crazing happens when a piece goes from cool to hot too rapidly. But of course, I didn't wiki that, so...
crazing:
crackling:
One type weakens the integrity of the vessel, and the other has visual interest and aesthetic value. I believe (and our artists here can correct me on this) crackling involves the glaze only, but crazing can occur or extend into the clay body. You see it frequently in lower quality porcelain, and the crazing often goes all the way through the porcelain and can be seen faintly on the reverse side.
crazing on reverse, note fine line extending vertically toward the rim from the top of the pagoda:
