Suwada Blog
How to Care for Japanese Tableware: Pottery, Porcelain, Lacquer, Wood, Glass & Metal
Learn how to care for Japanese tableware by material: pottery, porcelain, lacquer, wood, glass and metal, including dishwasher, microwave, drying, staining, stacking and storage.
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Osechi & the Japanese New Year Table: Foods, Meanings, Jubako & Ozoni
Understand osechi and the Japanese New Year table: symbolic foods, jubako boxes, regional ozoni, o-toso, toshikoshi soba and how modern families actually celebrate.
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Japanese Food Plating Explained: Morizuke, Height, Space, Colour & Vessels
Learn Japanese food plating through morizuke: how height, empty space, colour, garnish, portion and vessel choice work together without turning professional kaiseki into a household rule.
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Seasonality at the Japanese Table: Shun, Tableware, Colour & Motifs
Learn how seasonality works at the Japanese table through shun ingredients, colour, temperature, tableware, motifs and annual events—without turning restaurant customs into household rules.
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What Is Utsuwa? Japanese Vessels, Tableware & Everyday Use
Utsuwa means more than pottery. Learn how the Japanese word refers to vessels and tableware, how food and container relate, and why material, form and everyday use matter.
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Japanese Tableware Materials Explained: Pottery, Porcelain, Lacquer, Wood, Glass & Metal
Compare Japanese tableware materials including pottery, porcelain, lacquerware, wood, glass and metal, and learn how weight, heat, texture and function affect the way each vessel is used.
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How Japanese Tableware Is Combined: Shape, Colour, Material & Season
Learn how Japanese tableware can combine different shapes, colours and materials without relying on matching sets, and how size, food, season and negative space create coherence.
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Japanese Tableware Sizes Explained: Sun, Shaku & Common Plate and Bowl Sizes
Learn how traditional Japanese units such as sun and shaku relate to plate and bowl sizes, and how proportion helps different pieces of Japanese tableware work together.
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Who Were the Rikyu Shichitetsu? The Seven Warrior Disciples of Sen no Rikyu
The Rikyū Shichitetsu are the traditional seven warrior disciples of Sen no Rikyū. Learn the standard Omotesenke list, why some tea records replace Furuta Oribe with Oda Uraku, and how these very different disciples carried Rikyū’s chanoyu into warrior culture.
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What Is Daimyo Tea? Warrior Chanoyu from Rikyu to the Edo Period
Daimyō tea is not one school but a broad history of chanoyu practiced and reshaped by warrior elites. Learn how tea became politically important under Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, how Rikyū’s warrior disciples carried it forward and why Oribe, Sansai, Uraku and Enshū developed such different styles.
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Who Was Oda Uraku? Rikyu's Disciple and the Tea Master Behind Jo-an
Oda Uraku, born Oda Nagamasu, was Nobunaga’s younger brother, a student of Sen no Rikyū and founder of Uraku-ryū. Learn why some sources include him among the Rikyū Shichitetsu and how his 1618 tea room Jo-an became one of Japan’s National Treasure tea rooms.
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Who Was Makimura Hyobu? Rikyu's Disciple and the Early Distorted Tea Bowl
Makimura Hyōbu was a Christian daimyo and one of Sen no Rikyū’s standard warrior disciples. A 1580 tea record associates him with an appreciated distorted bowl, making him an important precursor in the history of irregular Momoyama tea ceramics before Oribe.
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