Black Cosmos — Shino Wood-Fired Tea Mug

Black Cosmos

This mug arrived from the kiln looking like a fragment of the night sky made solid. The entire exterior is blanketed in a vivid black and iron-grey glaze — dense, crawled, and deeply textured, like the surface of a cooling lava field or the skin of a meteorite — with white Shino glaze scattered across it like stars flung across a dark universe. Hold it in your hands and you feel the weight of something elemental. Look inside, and the cosmos opens up.

Glaze & Surface

The exterior is covered in a thick, heavily crawled glaze of deep black and iron-grey — blistered, pitted, and richly three-dimensional, with a surface that catches light from every angle and shifts between black, dark brown, and iridescent blue-grey as you turn the mug. White Shino glaze erupts through the dark surface in scattered bursts — like stars, like ash, like light breaking through storm clouds. The handle is equally dramatic: thick, hand-formed, and encrusted with the same dark crawled glaze, with flashes of blue and white where the fire touched it. The interior provides a clear contrast: a swirling, luminous world of deep cobalt blue, midnight black, and pale sky-blue — glossy and striking — with a mysterious iridescent pool at the base that shifts between pearl-white, lavender, and copper as the light changes. It is like looking into a deep ocean trench, or a portal to another dimension.

Form & Feel

• Wide, rounded mug form with a sturdy hand-formed handle
• Substantial weight with excellent heat retention
• Deeply textured exterior — like holding a piece of the cosmos
• Luminous, iridescent interior — a world revealed with every sip

The Iridescent Base

The distinctive iridescent pool at the base of this mug's interior is the result of copper, iron, and titanium compounds in the glaze reacting with the wood-fire atmosphere at peak temperature — a chemical event that cannot be planned, controlled, or repeated. It is one of the rarest and most beautiful effects that wood firing can produce, and it makes this mug a one-of-a-kind functional artwork.

For the collector who wants the cosmos in their hands every morning. 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.