Shinichi Kotsuji: Handmade Japanese Tableware and How to Choose It

A Mie potter who works mostly in bowls

Shinichi Kotsuji pottery comes out of Mie, and the range leans heavily toward bowls — shallow bowls, a medium bowl, a leaf-shaped bowl, a rice bowl — with a single plate on the side. The clay is pottery, fired dense rather than thrown thin, and most pieces carry an ash glaze over a slip base, which gives the surface a slightly matte, softened look rather than a hard shine. If you are comparing Kotsuji pieces by search alone, depth is the number to look at first, since it tells you more about how a bowl behaves at the table than the glaze does.

Reading the leaf-shaped bowls

Two of Kotsuji's bowls are shaped around a leaf motif rather than a plain round rim — a three-leaf bowl and, separately, a four-leaf bowl. The three-leaf version sits at about 5.4 cm deep, ash-glazed over a slip base, with the leaf shape built into the rim itself rather than painted on. That depth puts it in side-dish territory: deep enough to hold a sauce or a small portion without it sliding out, shallow enough that you are not digging for the last bite.

A shallower bowl for the same table

Set next to the three-leaf bowl, a plainer round shallow bowl runs slightly shallower still, at about 5.2 cm, in the same ash-glazed slip finish. The two look related rather than identical — same glaze family, same clay body, just a different rim shape — which makes them easy to put on the table together without either one looking like the odd piece out. Use the plain shallow bowl where you want the glaze to be the whole story, and save the leaf-shaped one for when the shape itself is part of the point.

Sizing up for a full serving

For rice or a full portion rather than a side, Kotsuji's range includes a larger rice bowl at roughly 8.7 cm deep — noticeably taller than either of the shallow bowls above, and built for that extra volume rather than for display. There is also a small plate, around 3 cm at the rim, and a medium bowl that sits between the shallow pieces and the large rice bowl in size. Between these depths — 5.2 cm and 5.4 cm for the shallow bowls, 3 cm for the plate, and 8.7 cm for the large bowl — most everyday meals are covered without needing a second set from elsewhere.

Where to start

If you want to see the leaf-shaped rim in a different glaze, Kotsuji also makes a kiseto-glazed shallow bowl alongside the ash-glazed pieces above. Everything currently available, including sizes and glazes not covered here, is listed in the Shinichi Kotsuji collection.