EXTORIL
A colour-changing Mino ware sake cup from Tajimi, Japan. At 17°C / 63°F and below, cherry blossoms open across the ceramic — deeper pink the colder it gets. Let it warm and the cup goes white again, ready for the next person who has never seen it.
From · one, two or three cups
OMOTENASHI Selection · Gold Award 2023 — the Sakura Magic series by MARUMO TAKAGI
01 / WHAT HAPPENS
No switch, no app, no batteries. The line is 17°C / 63°F, and the cup does the rest.
Set it down. White ceramic, nothing to look at.
Pour something cold — 17°C / 63°F or below.
Pink opens across the cup. The colder the pour, the deeper it goes.
The table goes quiet. Then someone reaches for a phone.
Before the pour
As the cold reaches it
Fully chilled02 / TRY IT
Drag the temperature down. What you are looking at is the real cup, photographed — the blossoms are revealed, not drawn.
The live cup couldn’t start in this browser. Here is what it does: below 17°C / 63°F, pink cherry blossoms open across the white ceramic, and deepen as the drink gets colder.
03 / WHERE IT COMES FROM
Mino ware — Mino-yaki — is the ceramic tradition of Gifu Prefecture, in central Japan. HIYAZAKURA is made in Tajimi by MARUMO TAKAGI, who have been producing ceramic sake cups since 1887, when the company still traded as Marui Shoten. Tajimi is the largest ceramic-producing area in Japan: a town that has been working the same clay, and solving the same problems, for well over a century. The colour-changing cups are a recent chapter in a long book.
04 / THE FIGURES
Figures are the manufacturer’s own specifications, per cup.
05 / CHOOSE
The transformation wants a witness. One for your own shelf. Two for the table you usually sit at. Three when the evening is bigger than that.
Your set PAIR · 2 cups —
06 / RECOGNITION
Gold Award · consecutive
The Sakura Magic series by MARUMO TAKAGI — the cup sold here as HIYAZAKURA — holds a consecutive Gold Award from OMOTENASHI Selection, the Japanese award programme for products and services made in Japan.
See the official award entryReviews
HIYAZAKURA is new to Extoril. Reviews from verified buyers will appear here as they arrive; until then, the award and the footage above are the evidence.
Be the first07 / HONESTLY
A temperature-reactive ceramic finish asks for a little care. All of it is easy. None of it is optional.
08 / QUESTIONS
The blossoms are temperature doing the work, not something painted on that rinses off. Cold brings them up; as the cup warms, they go again. The care instructions are explicit about one real risk: long spells in direct sunlight will fade the colour, so keep it off a sunny windowsill. We do not publish a number of washes or years, because we have not tested one and will not invent one.
Yes. It is a sake cup, made as drinkware by MARUMO TAKAGI in Gifu and meant to be used. Everything on the care list is about heat and abrasion — microwave, oven, flame, dishwasher, scouring pads — not about what you pour in it. Keep it cold, wash it by hand, drink from it.
17°C / 63°F or below. That is where the blossoms begin. Past that point the colder the liquid, the deeper the pink — sake straight from the fridge shows more than sake merely cool, iced water more again. At room temperature the cup stays white.
No. Not the dishwasher, and not the microwave, the oven, an open flame or an IH hob. No scouring brushes, no abrasive cleaner either. Warm water, a soft cloth, by hand. That is the trade for an object that does something a plain glass never will.
Every time. The cup returns to white at room temperature and blooms again with the next cold pour — Marumo Takagi make the series specifically to be enjoyed over and over. Nothing is used up and nothing needs recharging. Pour, watch, let it warm, pour again.
Anything cold. It was built for hiya — chilled sake — and that is still the best version of it: a sake cup's measure, small and deliberate, made to be refilled rather than nursed. Cold water works. So does white wine, a short cocktail over ice, iced tea, anything straight out of the fridge. Hot sake leaves the cup white.
It is close to the ideal one. It explains itself in about four seconds, it asks nothing of the person receiving it, and it does its trick in front of other people — which is really what you are giving. PAIR is the usual choice: two cups means whoever opens it pours one for you. Pass the care list on with it. Hand-wash only.
冷や (hiya) is the Japanese word for sake served chilled. 桜 (zakura) is cherry blossom. Chilled cherry blossom. It is also a description of the thing it does: hanami, the custom of drinking under the cherry trees, lasts a couple of weeks a year in Japan. This puts it on a table in November.
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