What Is a Hagama? The Winged Kama in Japanese Tea
Oct 01, 2026
A hagama is a tea kettle with a projecting rim, called a wing or flange, around its body. That wing can do real work: it gives the kettle a place to rest on supports.
In a sukigi arrangement, wooden pieces carry the kettle at this wing. A conventional gotoku, by contrast, supports a kettle from underneath.
What does the wing look like?
Tankosha’s guide to kettle parts calls the outward-projecting rim hane (羽). The point where the kettle body meets the wing is called haochi (羽落ち). The guide notes that this feature appears on furo kettles.
A hagama (羽釜) has a clear wing around its body. It is not the same as a plain kettle with no projecting rim.
Is every kama a hagama?
No. Kama is the broader term for an iron tea kettle. Hagama names a particular shape within that group.
The distinction matters because a kettle’s shape affects how it can be supported. The name does not identify its material or its level of formality, such as shin, gyō and sō. Those are separate questions.
Why must a sukigi-gama have a wing?
Tankosha’s dictionary defines a sukigi-gama as a kettle used with sukigi and states that it must therefore be a hagama.
The reason is the point of contact. The wooden supports need the projecting wing to carry the kettle. The weight rests farther out, rather than on an iron trivet beneath the body. The wing is not just decoration.
How is this different from kirikake?
In a kirikake arrangement, the lower kettle body rests directly on the rim of a matching furo. Tankosha describes a kirikake-gama as having no wing and a lower body sized to fit the brazier’s mouth.
Both kirikake and hagama with sukigi can work without a separate gotoku. They achieve it differently: one uses a matching kettle and brazier; the other uses a projecting wing and separate wooden supports.
Is every winged kettle used with sukigi?
No single-use rule follows from the name. Hagama describes the kettle’s shape. Sukigi is one documented way of supporting that shape.
Historical and school-specific arrangements may use winged kettles in other ways. The form alone does not tell you the whole procedure.
What happens to the gotoku?
It is not used in the sukigi arrangement. An Urasenke headmaster’s question-and-answer text names both sukigi-gama and tsurigama, hanging kettles, as cases where no gotoku is placed in the hearth.
Removing the gotoku changes the equipment visible beneath the kettle. The wing also changes the kettle’s outline against the hearth or brazier. How the kettle is supported therefore affects both function and appearance.
Do you need a hagama for matcha at home?
No. The term is useful when studying chanoyu kettle and charcoal arrangements, not as a requirement for whisking a simple bowl of matcha.
Look for the wing, then ask how it is supported. That separates the kettle’s shape from the equipment and procedures used with it.
Sources and further reading
- Tanko+ — Names of tea kettle parts, including hane and haochi
- Tanko+ / Tankosha Tea Dictionary — Sukigi-gama
- Tanko+ / Tankosha Tea Dictionary — Kirikake-gama
- Urasenke headmaster Q&A — Sukigi-gama and no-gotoku arrangements
Header photograph: noodle kimm via Unsplash. It shows iron tea kettles as a general material-and-form reference; it does not depict a verified chanoyu hagama.
