Stone from the Deep — Shino Wood-Fired Teacup

Stone from the Deep

Round, dense, and utterly self-contained — this cup looks as though it was formed not by human hands but by geological time. The exterior is blanketed in a dense, crawled glaze of deep grey-green and white, like lichen colonising ancient rock, or the surface of a meteorite that has travelled through fire and cold and arrived, finally, at rest. It sits low and heavy in the palm, and when you look inside, the world changes entirely.

Glaze & Surface

The exterior is covered in a strongly crawled and blistered glaze — thousands of small, rounded nodules of white and grey-green glaze, densely packed and deeply textured, like the surface of a rough stone or the skin of a sea creature. Dark iron-grey shows through between the nodules, grounding the composition. The upper body deepens toward the rim, where the glaze becomes darker and more iridescent — blue-black and metallic, like the surface of still water at night. The interior is the revelation: a swirling, luminous world of deep blue-violet and white — dense, bubbled, and alive — with a bright, glowing pool of cobalt blue at the centre, like a bioluminescent creature seen from above, or a portal opening in the dark. White glaze bubbles and rings scatter across the surface like stars reflected in a midnight lake.

Form & Feel

• Round, low, inward-curving chawan form — meditative and self-contained
• Substantial weight with excellent heat retention
• Deeply textured exterior — like holding a piece of the earth itself
• Luminous, otherworldly interior — a world revealed only when you look within

The Glow Within

The distinctive blue luminosity of this cup's interior is the result of copper and iron compounds reacting with the wood-fire atmosphere at peak temperature — a chemical event that cannot be planned, controlled, or repeated. Every cup that emerges from the kiln with this depth of interior glow is a distinct result of this firing.

A cup for those who seek the sacred in the everyday. One of a kind, never to be repeated.

Care

Suitable for contact with tea. Hand wash gently and avoid abrasive cleaners. Variations and firing marks are part of this one-of-a-kind handmade piece.