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Make the bowl
- Wedge
- Shape
- Trim
- Mark
- Glaze
- Fire
- Done
Make a raku bowl with your fingertips
Just trace and press. One bowl takes about 3 minutes
Enjoy this bowl on its own, or add a sweet and serve tea when it is ready.
See a finished bowl
Your hands and the kiln give each bowl its own character.
Play the little “ping” the glaze makes as the hot bowl cools and crackles?
Hand tips
Looking back
Storage and details
Follow the crack to mend
Real kintsugi uses lacquer to join the pieces and prepare the surface, then gold powder and time to cure. Waiting is shortened here.
Select this to trace the crack on the bowl. “Mend with gold” can still do it automatically.
A browser game: make a raku tea bowl with your fingers
Wedge the clay, pinch it into a bowl, trim the foot, carve a seal, glaze it and fire it in a charcoal kiln, all in your browser. Trace with a finger or use the buttons; one bowl takes about 3 minutes. Your bowls stay on a shelf on this device, can hold matcha in Ippuku, and can be sent to someone as a link. Free, no sign-up.
How a real raku bowl is made
This game is free, with no sign-up, no install and no ads. Add it to your home screen and it works offline; your records stay on this device only
The on-screen steps shorten drying and bisque firing. Preparing a real bowl takes days.
- Wedge the clay to drive out air; with no potter’s wheel, flatten it into a disc, raise its edge by hand, then swell the lower wall into a bowl
- Rest it in a muro until leather-hard, then trim it with a rib, foot first, then the wall
- It is dried well and bisque-fired, then the glaze is brushed on in coats
- It is fired in a charcoal kiln fanned with bellows, pulled out the moment the glaze melts to a shine, and cooled fast (black raku at around 1,000°C, red raku at around 800–1,000°C)
Clay, glazes and kilns call for different temperatures and cooling methods. This short experience follows one approach.
It has not been reviewed by any tea school or kiln. Learn the real manners at a tea ceremony class, and the making at a pottery class
Tea people rank bowls “first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu”. Hagi and Karatsu bowls are thrown on the wheel and fired in a climbing kiln
Raku began in the late 16th century, when Chōjirō made bowls to the taste of the tea master Sen no Rikyū; the Raku family has carried it on ever since. Dōnyū (Nonkō), the third generation, is known for his glossy black raku
Questions
- What is a raku tea bowl?
- A bowl shaped by hand without a wheel, pulled from the kiln while hot and cooled quickly. In the tea world it is ranked first among tea bowls
- What happens to the bowl I make?
- It stays on the shelf on this device, and you can use it to whisk matcha in Ippuku. You can also send it to someone as a link
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. It is free, needs no sign-up or install, and has no ads
- Is a real bowl made the same way?
- The broad steps are the same. A real bowl takes days to dry and bisque-fire, and temperatures and cooling vary with the clay, glaze and kiln
Sources for the history of raku and the Raku family: Raku Museum
Shelf
Collected
Seasons
A month gets a ✓ when you fire a bowl in it this year. “prev” marks a month from an earlier year. The red frame is this month
✦ marks a month you had tea with a Raku bowl and a nerikiri sweet (from Ippuku)
Collection
A shape and glaze get a ✓ once you have fired them together
Kiln marks
Chance effects from the kiln are kept here, with their names
The shelf holds 30 bowls. Past that, the oldest unpinned bowl moves to storage, and you can bring it back any time. Bowls you “Keep on shelf” stay
No bowls match these filters.
Stored bowls
Bowls taken off the shelf stay here. Select one to view it or put it back on the shelf.