ippuku abisensei🍵🐔👘

Y’all I made a mistake.

Remember last post when I said that Japanese pottery practically lasts forever?

Well, about that….

This morning I was going about my business – ya know feeding the chickens, making breakfast, brewing my coffee etc. – when tragedy struck.

As I was pouring hot coffee into that cute little vintage chicken mug I heard a sound that no one wants to hear when handling hot beverages. An ominous popping noise. Followed by a gush of hot coffee flowing from the general area of said popped spot.

The crack that had sprung open from the sheer heat of my drink spanned from the top of the mug, down the side along the handle, and straight into the middle of the bottom of the vessel. This thing was absolutely cooked.

I haven’t been this devastated over broken Japanese pottery since the infamous 2019 Tajimi Ceramic Festival incident where a stranger accidentally bumped my table and knocked a one-of-a-kind tea bowl THAT I HAD JUST PURCHASED onto a cafe floor and into pieces. I’m still scarred emotionally from that.

This time, as with last time, there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent this. Sometimes ceramics do just get old from so much thermal shock over the years and they just pop. Regardless of how well made they are. This happens all the time with traditional clay nabe pots, so of course it would apply to that type of drink ware too. I felt so stupid standing there half awake with hot coffee pouring down my arm as it dawned on me.

So now there’s the egg. All over my face.

And now I’m searching for my next vintage funky chicken mug for my morning coffee….

But wait, this thing could be super glued! Or surely I could use it for something else right?

Right!

So I superglued it back together and now it holds my utensils on my desk. So I can still enjoy its whimsy and beauty, but I just can’t drink out of it because super glue is toxic. 🙂

Anyways, let this be a lesson to carefully look over ceramics when buying secondhand in order to save you some heartache. Happy thrifting, kids! 🙌