Large bowl with millet and sparrow design

Wabicha

The custom of drinking powdered green tea (matcha) whisked in boiling water became widely popular in the 1500s. During this time a few tea masters began hosting a simple, rustic style of tea gathering called wabicha. Unlike their predecessors and contemporaries, who preferred refined Chinese utensils, this new group of tea practitioners made it fashionable to use humble, imperfect wares.

This style of tea practice fueled active ceramic production in Japan and gave rise to a variety of provincial pottery, as seen here. While different regional pottery groups are identifiable by their individual traits, all of these objects demonstrate tea practitioners’ preference for the natural and the irregular in their subdued colors and free-formed shapes. This rustic style greatly affected the wider Japanese aesthetic sensibility. Many potters today are still working in pursuit of the intentionally imperfect rather than the refined to produce both tea utensils and non-tea objects.