24K Gold Kintsugi Kyoto Tea Cup | A Branching Spring

Blossoms Without End Since the sixteenth century, Kyoto ware has flourished alongside Kyoto’s tea culture, and the kumidashi teacup was made to reveal the color of the tea itself. Here, every blossom is painted by hand. Built stroke by stroke in sometsuke cobalt, the sakura-zume pattern represents one of Kyoto ware’s most accomplished decorative traditions, covering the porcelain from rim to foot in an unbroken field of bloom. Born of Kyoto’s Heritage: This piece too is authentic Kyo-yaki pottery, handcrafted using time-honored techniques and refined by centuries of Japanese artistry. Learn more → The Art and Technique of Kyoto Ware Four Months in Urushi Broken into fragments, the cup was restored over four months by Keiko Hata, a lacquer artist with a Master’s degree in Lacquer Arts from Kyoto City University of Arts who has also taught traditional kintsugi workshops in Japan. Using food-safe natural urushi, she carefully reunited the vessel before sprinkling genuine 24K gold powder in the traditional maki-e manner and finishing the seam through roiro, the highest grade of urushi finishing, which gives the gold its smooth, deep luster while leaving the cup ready for tea. One gold seam begins at the rim, branches through the blossoms, circles the lower body, and continues inside, crossing the well in a single unbroken path. An Unrepeatable Spring This cup unites two living Japanese traditions: the Kyoto ware lineage behind its field of blossoms and the enduring craft of authentic kintsugi in natural urushi. Gold now moves through the endless bloom along a path no other vessel could repeat, turning the fracture itself into part of the design. To live with this cup is to carry both traditions forward as the next custodian of the story they continue to tell.