What is a kyusu teapot and how to use it 急須

What is a kyusu?

A kyusu is the everyday Japanese teapot built for brewing green tea: loose leaf goes in, and a strainer built into the body catches it as the tea pours out. Most have the handle set at a right angle to the spout rather than opposite it, a side-handle style, which lets you tip and pour with one hand and keeps the handle away from the hot spout. A rear handle, closer to what a Western teapot has, and a top handle both exist too, but the side handle is the type most people picture when they hear the word.

How do you brew tea in a kyusu?

Add the loose leaves to the pot first, since a kyusu never sits directly on the heat; boil the water separately and let it cool before it goes in. Ippodo Tea's standard method for sencha calls for water cooled to 80°C, poured over the leaves and left to brew for 60 seconds without being stirred. In Ippodo's own words: "Brew without stirring or disturbing the tea leaves." Once the time is up, tip the pot in one steady pour rather than refilling cups in stages. The strainer built into the body, a mesh set where the spout meets the inside wall, holds the leaves back as the tea passes through, so what lands in the cup runs clear rather than gritty.

What are ours made from?

What we stock spans a few different clay traditions rather than one look. Our Arita teapot ($97.95) is porcelain, from Arita in Saga Prefecture, a ware with a history running back over four centuries that was once exported abroad under the name Imari. Our Mino pieces are stoneware from the Mino district of eastern Gifu: the tokusa linework teapot ($38.00) is hand painted with fine indigo lines, and the chrysanthemum-shaped teapot ($48.95) is shaped like the flower and is the one design in our range listed dishwasher safe. Shigaraki contributes two shapes in a wood-fired clay, the rounded and the shallow teapot, both $56.80, the surface picking up scarlet fire marks and a natural ash glaze as it sits in the kiln, so no two pieces come out quite the same. Our Iga-ware pot is fired the same porous way, hard enough to sit over an open flame, with fine crackle lines and small glassy green spots where the ash melted onto the surface. The Fukui Craft checkered teapot ($62.00) carries its own strainer inside a plain ceramic body, with the checker pattern named only in its title. At the decorative end, Asahido's crystal carving teapots pair porcelain with a hand-cut glass-like wall made near Hasami, in Nagasaki Prefecture, so light passes through and shows the colour of the tea itself.

Why the low, wide shape?

A kyusu is built low and wide rather than tall, and that shape is doing a job rather than following convention. Our Shigaraki listing puts it plainly: the wide, shallow body suits Japanese tea leaves, which want room to open out sideways rather than being packed into a narrow column the way a taller pot forces them to sit.

Does every kyusu have a strainer?

Most of what we carry does. A mesh strainer sits inside the pot where the spout meets the body, usually stainless steel, so the tea pours out clear and the leaves stay behind for a second or third steep. Our Arita, Mino and Fukui Craft pots all carry one built in this way. So does the Iga-ware pot; it is worth checking the specific listing before you buy, since not every design on our shelf carries the same setup.

Do you carry the classic unglazed kyusu from Tokoname or Banko?

Not currently. The best-known kyusu tradition uses shudei, an unglazed red-brown clay from Tokoname, or the closely related shudei teapots from the Yokkaichi area, thrown from iron-rich local clay, fired in reduction and left without glaze. What is on our shelf right now is glazed and decorated stoneware and porcelain from several different kilns instead. If the unglazed style interests you, our Banko ware guide covers that clay and the shidei teapots it is known for. Our Mino ware guide covers the district behind several of the teapots we do stock instead. Washing and drying it is its own topic: see our kyusu care guide.

Quick answers

These are the questions people ask us most often about kyusu teapots, answered briefly.

What does kyusu mean? It is the Japanese word for the everyday teapot used to brew green tea, almost always with a side handle and a built-in strainer.

Why does a kyusu have the handle on the side instead of opposite the spout? A side handle lets you tip and pour with one hand and keeps your hand further from the hot spout; it is the most common kyusu handle style.

Can a kyusu go in the dishwasher? Usually not. Most of ours are hand wash only; one Mino-ware chrysanthemum design is the exception and is listed as dishwasher safe, so check the individual listing.

Do you sell the classic unglazed clay teapot from Tokoname? Not at the moment. What we stock is glazed stoneware and porcelain from kilns including Mino, Shigaraki and Arita; see our Banko ware guide for the unglazed shudei tradition.

Why is a kyusu shaped low and wide rather than tall? Because Japanese tea leaves need room to open out sideways; a wide, shallow body gives them that room better than a tall, narrow one does.