Kogei What the listing does not tell you
A Nambu cast iron kettle, an earthenware donabe with its lid and a vermilion lacquer bowl standing together, with a Japanese single-bevel knife lying flat in front of them.
An AI-generated image, not a photograph of specific pieces — the site does not own the objects it writes about. The diagrams inside each guide are drawn, not generated, and say so.

日本の工芸、その扱い方

The part the listing leaves out.

Japanese craft objects are sold worldwide with beautiful photographs of the outside and very little about what will destroy them. These guides cover the differences that cost people the piece — each one checkable, each one sourced.

Tetsubin or tetsu-kyusu?

Two Nambu cast iron vessels that look identical from outside. One boils water and gives you iron; putting the other on heat cracks its lining for good. You can tell them apart in one look.

The step before a new donabe cooks anything

Unglazed clay is porous. Used straight from the box it seeps, stains and holds odours — and the fix is twenty minutes and a bowl of leftover rice.

What destroys lacquerware

Dishwasher, microwave, sunlight. All of them normal things to do with tableware, all of them irreversible on urushi.

A single-bevel knife is made for one hand

Yanagiba, deba and usuba are ground on one side only. In the wrong hand the blade is not blunt, it is backwards — and the left-handed version is made to order.
Why this site exists. It is written in Japan by someone who spent twenty years in manufacturing — metal, surfaces and finishing — which is useful background for reading how these pieces are made and why they fail. It is not a claim to be a craftsman or a tea specialist. We do not own or test the pieces described here, and every claim carries its sources.