Nam-Lin Hur - Korean Tea Bowls in the World of Japanese Wabicha in Premodern Times

For more than two centuries from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, one particular item dominated the fashion of wabicha, a form of tea ceremony, in Japan. This item were tea bowls imported from Korea, commonly called Korai chawan, or Korean tea bowls. Korean tea bowls held the key to the evolving aesthetic of wabicha which was much fostered by Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) and inherited by other eminent tea masters in Tokugawa Japan.