Glazed vs Unglazed: What It Means for Your Tableware
The potter's hand hesitates over the wheel. Glaze, or leave it bare?
This isn't about aesthetics alone. The surface of Japanese pottery determines how the vessel behaves — how it feels under your fingertips, how it holds heat, whether it absorbs the memory of tea or sake or miso. Glazed surfaces seal the clay beneath a glassy skin. Unglazed surfaces breathe, porous and alive.
In tea ceremony, certain bowls are left unglazed on purpose. The clay drinks in the tannins, darkening over years, building a patina that belongs only to you. Other pieces demand the protection of glaze — especially those meant for liquid, for everyday use, for the chaos of a shared table.
But here's what most people miss: the choice between glazed and unglazed isn't just functional. It's philosophical. It reflects how a culture thinks about permanence, change, and the relationship between object and user. One surface resists. The other remembers.
Which kind of bowl do you reach for? The answer might tell you more about yourself than you expect.
The full story — including how to care for each type, and why some potters mix both on a single piece — is on Chaware.
上釉或不上釉,決定了器物如何與你對話。
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