In Japanese, tea practitioners frequently refer to more than twenty-six different shapes of tea bowls, but these are difficult to translate into English and not very meaningful in a non-chanoyu cultural context. The important fact to note is that historically, most tea bowls were not smaller than 9 cm and not larger than 14 cm in the diameter of the mouth.

Senchawan (bowl for steeped tea): Chinese literati-style steeped tea drinking became very popular in Japan in the 18th century and continues to have a small following in contemporary Japan. To learn more about Sencha, see Pat Graham’s book Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha.

Matchawan (bowl for powdered tea): The term “chawan” almost always refers to a tea bowl to be used to consume powdered green tea or “matcha,” so I have always found the term “matchawan” to be highly redundant.

Banchawan (bowl for coarse tea): Course tea (bancha) is usually drunk out of a tea cup (yunomi) rather than a tea bowl, so this term also seems a bit strange. I have noticed that some potters in Japan use this term to describe their tea bowls, but the difference escapes me.