Japanese tableware is a general term for dishes used for Japanese cuisine, and mainly includes tea bowls, bowls, plates, bowls, rice bowls, and chopsticks. Japanese tableware is characterized by a variety of vessel shapes and depths, and the shape and depth of the dish used for each dish varies. In addition, many dishes such as rice bowls and soup bowls are held in the hand and used. For this reason, many pieces are produced with an emphasis on texture, such as mouthfeel and feel. In contrast, Western tableware is usually served on a table with a fork, knife, and spoon, so porcelain, which is scratch-resistant, is the most common type of tableware.

The charm of Japanese tableware is that it is a one-of-a-kind piece, as the shape, size, distortion, glaze color, and other characteristics of the same dish differ slightly from one to another. Japanese tableware is more diverse than Western tableware and can be said to play a supporting role in enhancing Japanese food culture and seasonal Japanese cuisine.

Since ancient times, Japan has had a unique culinary culture of “enjoying meals with the eyes,” “enjoying dishes according to the season,” and “holding dishes in the hand and eating them with chopsticks, Japanese tableware has developed along with changes in food culture, with a wide variety of materials, shapes, colors, and patterns. There are round plates, oval plates, long rectangular plates, square plates, corner-cut plates, hexagonal plates, octagonal plates, mokkosara plates (plates shaped like a flower of a jukou), rinkasara plates (plates representing flower petals), rimmed plates (plates with a rim), and so on. Japanese tableware is familiar to us, but knowing the history and meaning of the shapes, colors, and patterns of these dishes makes us feel that the dishes we use without thinking about them are attractive and add color to our daily lives.