Jan 23, 2026

How We Collect Teaware in Japan

Hill House began with flowers, but there has always been tea on the table.

Before there was a studio on a California hill, there was a small kitchen in Japan, where our founder was learning to cook, pour tea, and understand how sharing something simple could bring people together. The teaware we carry now is a continuation of that story: pieces found slowly, deliberately, one at a time.

This is how we collect teaware in Japan.

We Start With People, Not Products

We don’t land in Japan with a shopping list.
We land with a handful of introductions, a few scribbled notes, and a lot of curiosity.

Some of our favourite pieces have come from:

A tiny family kiln at the end of a quiet road.
A second-generation shop owner who remembers which potter made which handle.
A market stall where the seller has no website, but can tell you exactly how a cup was used forty years ago.

We ask too many questions:
How was this made?
How long have you known this potter?
What do people usually drink from this shape?

The relationship comes first. The pieces follow.

We Look for Everyday Beauty, Not Museum Pieces

We’re not hunting trophies. We’re looking for teaware that wants to be used.

That means:

Cups that feel comfortable in the hand, not fragile with fear.
Kyusu (side-handled teapots) that pour cleanly, without drips or drama.
Bowls whose glazes become more interesting as they’re handled and washed.

We love:

Slightly irregular rims that show a human hand.
Glazes that pool in carved lines or around the foot of a cup.
Clay that has a quiet presence on the table, not a polished showroom shine.

If something looks perfect in a glass case but we hesitate to actually drink from it, we leave it behind. Hill House pieces need to work on an ordinary Tuesday morning as much as they would at a special tea.

We Let the Hand Tell Us the Truth

You can’t choose good teaware with your eyes alone.
We always hold the piece.

When we pick up a cup, we ask:

How heavy is it, compared to what it looks like?
Does the handle give the fingers a natural resting place?
Where does the thumb want to land?

When we test a teapot, we:

Check the balance with and without water.
Pour into a cup to see if the stream is steady.
Listen for the soft click of lid to body.

We’re looking for that quiet “oh” in the body—when something just feels right, even before we’ve fully registered why. That’s usually the piece that comes home.

We Respect Patina and Past Lives

Many of our favourite finds are vintage or gently used. In Japan, this isn’t a flaw; it’s often the point.

We look for:

Crazing lines in the glaze that look like a soft web of memories.
Slight wear on the base where a cup has turned on wooden tables for years.
The kind of surface that has already known hot tea, cool hands, and long conversations.

We don’t chase perfection. We chase character.

If a cup has a small, stable imperfection that speaks of years of use, we may choose it precisely for that reason. It fits the Hill House belief that objects are more beautiful when they’ve already held a few stories.

We Collect Slowly, Over Years, Not Trips

This collection is not the result of one big buying trip. It’s a decade of going back.

Each visit adds a few more pieces:

The small kiln we return to because we loved last year’s bowls.
The antique shop that always has one shelf that feels like it was waiting for us.
The market where, if you go early enough, you might find one exceptional, quiet piece hiding between many ordinary ones.

Sometimes we leave with a box. Sometimes with one small cup wrapped three times in newspaper.

We’d rather bring back a handful of pieces we love than a container of pieces we simply tolerate.

We Choose What Plays Well With Others

Hill House is about the whole table, not just the pot or the cup.

When selecting teaware, we imagine it with:

Our everlasting flowers in the background.
A linen cloth or bare wood table underneath.
A slice of cake on a plate nearby.

We ask:

Does this glaze cooperate with dessert?
Does this cup sit happily next to Western plates as well as Japanese ones?
Will this piece feel at home in a calm, modern interior as well as a more traditional space?

We’re always looking for quiet compatibility—pieces that can travel between cultures, rooms, and rituals without shouting for attention.

We Think About How Tea Brings People Together

Underneath all of this is something simple: tea is an excuse to gather.

When we collect teaware, we imagine:

A pair of friends sitting at a kitchen counter, sharing news.
A family ending a meal with something warm and gentle instead of another email check.
A moment between meetings when someone finally exhales.

We ask whether this pot, this cup, this plate can support that kind of moment. Does it invite someone to stay just a little longer? To refill the pot, to cut another slice, to tell one more story?

If the answer feels like yes, it belongs with us.

Bringing the Pieces Home

Once chosen, each piece travels back to our hilltop studio in California, where it’s washed, handled, and lived with before it appears on the site.

We style it:

With and without flowers
Alone and in sets
On bare wood and on linen
In morning and evening light

Only when it feels at ease in all of these situations do we feel comfortable letting it go live.

Many pieces come in tiny quantities. Some are truly one-of-a-kind. When they sell, we usually can’t replace them with the same exact thing—only something new we fall in love with on the next trip.

Collecting teaware in Japan is not a transaction for us. It’s an ongoing conversation—with craftsmen, shopkeepers, cooks, old kilns, and the simple act of hot water meeting leaves in a small pot.

Every piece that makes it into the Hill House edit is a little record of that conversation, ready to be part of your own table, your own kitchen, your own quiet moments with tea.