Antique and Vintage Sake Sets

Most antique and vintage sake flasks and cups are made out of clay, whether it's delicate porcelain or sturdy stoneware. In general, clay vessels used to pour or consume sake are called shuki. In many restaurants, sake is served in a square wooden vessel known as a masu, which allows the warm, perfume-like flavor of the sake to mix with the wood, often cedar. Clay can also impart flavor to sake, making the choice of the vessel or cup one uses very important to the experience of drinking sake. Square masu aside, most sake cups conform to a few basic circular shapes. The smallest cups are called ochoko. Resembling shot glasses, ochoko are smaller and more recent cousins of the traditional guinomi, whose larger size is still small enough to be gripped in one hand. Because guinomi are a bit larger than ochoko, they are more likely to feature heavy, decorative glazing, giving them the appearance of a fine piece of studio art pottery. Sake cups, particularly guinomi, are also decorated in traditional Japanese ceramics styles, from Imari to Kutani to Mino. Less common, but older still, is the almost saucer-like sakazuki. One trait most handmade sake cups have in common, regardless of their shape, style, or size, is the kodai, or foot, of the piece. As a group, sake flasks, which are sometimes referred to as decanters or bottles, are called tokkuri in Japanese. As with the cups, within the universe of tokkuri, there are a myriad of styles. Bizen, for example, is a type of unglazed stoneware, in use since the 12th century, as is Shigaraki. But antique and vintage sake flasks can usually be found in a greater array of shapes than the cups. There are tokkuri that sport small spouts, like teapots for sake. Others look a lot like bottles, in both flat-sided and cylindrical varieties. Many more tokkuri resemble small vases (bulbous at the bottom, pinched at the top), and there's great number of flasks that ape the appearance of gourds.