Yuzamashi/Pitcher (Matte Cream White)

Warm cream in the hand, with the quiet weight of something made for a purpose — cooling hot water into the right temperature for tea.

Between the kettle and the kyusu, the yuzamashi holds the water while it cools — pour it in, feel the cream-white clay warm under your fingers, and when the heat settles, pour again into the pot. NANKEI POTTERY (南景製陶園) makes this one in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture from Banko-yaki stoneware. The clay is dense and non-absorbent, carrying no flavour from one tea to the next. Hot water drops around 10–15 degrees in about ten seconds, putting you in the 50–80°C range where gyokuro and fine sencha open fully. Between brews, it works as a small pitcher or serving vessel.

Matte Cream White is an original NANKEI formula, reviving the "white mud" (hakudei) clay common in Banko-yaki from the Taisho era through the Showa period. New, the surface is chalky and pale greige; with regular use it develops a gentle gloss, it takes on the look of something used and kept.

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South of Nagoya, along the shore of Ise Bay, Yokkaichi in Mie Prefecture has been a centre for Banko-yaki since the eighteenth century. The city's iron-rich clay and long firing tradition gave rise to a distinct stoneware character — dense, unglazed surfaces that age quietly with use. 南景製陶園 (Nankei Pottery) has worked within this tradition for decades, using a proprietary clay formula that has remained unchanged for more than fifty years. High-temperature yakishime firing drives off virtually all porosity, leaving a body that is hard, smooth to the touch, and subtly warm in colour.

The forms Nankei designs are spare and considered — nothing added that does not serve the tea. A kyusu pours cleanly; a yunomi sits without fuss in the hand. That restraint comes not from minimal effort but from sustained attention to proportion and weight. If you want to learn more about the people behind the work, our Behind the Sip article on Nankei Pottery goes further: Nankei Pottery — Banko-yaki in Yokkaichi.