Does the shape of your sake cup make any difference?

There is a huge range of different shapes sizes and textures for Japanese sake cups. One of the most common questions, is whether this is purely aesthetic or whether it makes a difference to your sake. Let's take a look at the different shapes first and then see what that means for taste and experience. (Size is covered on a different page)

Shapes and their name

Most of the shape names we use for sake cups are borrowed from the vocabulary of the Japanese tea bowl (chawan) because as kaiseki culture grew, Japanese restaurateurs and potters began to place more artistic emphasis on the sake cup and Japanese chawan shared much of the artistic approach.

Wan-nari 碗形 – Bowl: The basic tea-bowl shape, rounded like a bowl, with an open mouth. 碗 simply means bowl, and is the most common shape for sake cups.

Tsutsu-nari 筒形 – Cylinder: Tall and straight-sided, from tsutsu, a tube. Tea practitioners use tall, narrow bowls in the coldest months because they hold heat better.

Hanzutsu 半筒形 – Short cylinder: A "half cylinder": a lower, squatter version of the tsutsu shape. Relatively common, as the half cylinder often feels more in proportion than a tall tsutsu-nari type cylinder cup.

Hira-nari 平形 – Shallow: Flat and wide like a saucer nearly. In tea, wide shallow bowls are summer bowls, because they let the contents cool faster, but this shape also harks back to the ancient Sukizaki shape, still used in Shinto ritual today.

Sugi-nari 杉形 – Conical: Tall and widening almost in a straight line from foot to rim. The name means "cedar shape": turned upside down, the bowl looks like a cedar tree or an upturned cone.

Ido-nari 井戸形 – Trumpet: Tall and deep, opening upward like a morning glory. The name comes from the Korean Ido tea bowls, everyday Korean bowls that Japanese tea masters prized above all others. Traditionally, Ido-nari tea bowls would have a defined foot, which is slightly less common on sake cups.

Shioge 塩笥形 – Rounded: A full, rounded body with the rim slightly closed in. The name means "salt container": the form is said to come from Korean jars for salt or miso, which Japanese tea masters adopted as tea caddies and tea bowls (very similar to the Salt Jars by the Keishugama kiln).

Hatazori 端反形 – Flared: A rim that curves outward. 端 is the edge and 反 means to bend back. Quite common among sake cups (especially the Takatori Soushu cups), it lets the sake flow easily.

Dōjime 胴締 – Waisted: A body pinched in around the middle, as if tied at the waist. Less common for sake cups, but it can make for a pleasant cup to hold, as your fingers naturally grip round the middle of the cup.

Dōhimo 胴紐形 – Banded: A raised band or groove around the body, like a cord tied round it. Again less common, but Kouyougama often use this decorative shape to add a bit of interest and texture.

Bajōhai 馬上杯 – Stemmed: A cup on a tall stem that you grip in one hand. The name means "cup on horseback", and the form goes back to Chinese stem cups. There is a great story that Japanese warlords drank while riding into battle, but whether anyone actually drank from them on horseback is not recorded! The Enshū school of tea notes that Uesugi Kenshin, a famously heavy drinker, owned bajōhai that survive at the Uesugi Shrine but how and when he drunk form them has been lost in the mists of time. 

Bekuhai 可杯 – Bekuhai: this describes cups that cannot be put down until they are empty, because they have a rounded base and will roll over. The name is a pun from classical writing, where the character 可 ("may", "should") always comes first in a phrase and never at the end, so it can never be "put down".

Does the cup change the taste?

The cup does not change the sake itself, but it does change how you experience it. The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association (JSS) says that shape and thickness affect taste: a cylinder-shaped cup with a thick lip tends to make sake taste richer, while a shallow cup with a thin lip makes it taste lighter. Food in Japan adds that the cup changes how much aroma reaches your nose, how the sake meets your lips, how fast it warms and how big each sip is. It should be noted that these aren't formal studies, and there are a lot of different interpretations and opinions.

In practice though, you can be guided by a few useful rules of thumb:

·       Aroma: a wide mouth gives aroma room to gather, which is why a larger guinomi can suit more fragrant sake.

·       Temperature: a small choko is finished before warm sake cools or chilled sake warms; a guinomi pour lasts longer and changes temperature as you drink. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it can be fun to experience sake as it either cools or warms towards room temperature.

·       Mouthfeel: a thin rim lets sake flow smoothly onto the tongue, while a thick rim slows it and adds weight against the lips (Food in Japan). More so that other drinks, the mouthfeel of nihonshu is quite variable and even if not scientific, your expectations can shape how you experience mouth feel. 

Warm or chilled: does the shape matter?

There are no strict rules (Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association (JSS)), but the thinking is simple: for warm sake you want the sake to stay warm, and for chilled sake you want it to stay cool and to show off its aroma. Size, wall thickness and the width of the mouth matter more than the exact shape.

For warm sake (kan), choose a small cup, so each pour is finished before it cools, and ideally one in thicker ceramic, which holds heat; warming the cup first also slows cooling further (Food in Japan). Deeper shapes with a narrower or in-turned mouth, such as tsutsu-nari (Cylinder), hanzutsu (Short Cylinder) or shioge (Rounded), expose less surface to the air and will retain heat longer.

For chilled sake, thin porcelain, fine stoneware and glass feel clean and cool against the lips. Open shapes, such as wan-nari (Bowl), hatazori (Flared), hira-nari (Shallow), sugi-nari (Conical) and ido-nari (Trumpet), give aroma room to gather, which suits fragrant ginjo styles. With chilled sake, the same openness means the sake warms faster, so depending on how quick you want your sake to find its way to room temperature, some of the narrower styles may also work. As mentioned above, small ochoko works for both: it leaves little time for chilled sake to warm or for warm sake to cool.

In conclusion, these are tendencies and opinions, not laws: the sake, its temperature, the size of the pour and your own senses all play a part. It is why a selection of different sake cups is often recommended, the weather, your mood, memories associated with different cups can all play a part!. It is also worth remembering that the feel of the cup on your fingers can also brings a different tactile dimension to enjoying sake, not just strictly how the sake tastes or reacts to your chosen cup.