Choosing a Kyusu: Japan's Everyday Teapot

A kyusu (急須) is not a smaller version of a Western teapot. It is a tool built around one job — brewing Japanese green tea, leaf against hot water, for a minute or so — and every part of it, from the sideways handle to the mesh behind the spout, exists because of how sencha behaves in the pot. Here is how to read those parts, and how to choose a kyusu you’ll actually reach for.

The short answer

• Handle: the classic side handle (yokode) is the most comfortable for pouring tea in small, repeated rounds. Buy this unless you know you want otherwise.
• Material: unglazed clay (Tokoname red, Banko purple) is the traditional choice for everyday sencha; porcelain or glazed pots are easier to care for and stay neutral across many teas.
• Strainer: look at the mesh before the glaze. A fine built-in ceramic strainer or a wide stainless band behind the spout beats a small dangling tea ball every time.
• Size: around 200–300 ml covers one or two drinkers across several steepings. Bigger is rarely better.

The handle — why it sits on the side

Pick up a yokode kyusu and the logic explains itself: the stubby handle sits at roughly a right angle to the spout, so you pour with one relaxed hand, thumb resting on the lid to hold it in place. Japanese green tea is poured in small rounds — a little into each cup, back and forth, so everyone gets the same strength — and the side handle makes that repeated, precise pour effortless. Most kyusu are made for right-handed pouring; left-handed versions exist but are less common, which is worth checking before you buy.

There are other shapes, each with a reason to exist:

• Yokode (横手) — side handle. The default, and the right first choice for sencha.
• Ushirode (後手) — back handle. The familiar Western position, opposite the spout. Handy if the pot doubles for black or Chinese tea, and it works the same in either hand.
• Uwade (上手) — top handle. A handle arching over the lid, often on larger pots for bancha and hōjicha, where the pot is heavier and carries hotter water.
• Hōhin (宝瓶) — no handle at all. A small pot you cup directly in the hand. It only makes sense because gyokuro and premium sencha are brewed with water cooled well below boiling — cool enough that the pot itself stays comfortable to hold.

The strainer — the part that decides how it pours

Japanese green tea, sencha especially, is a fine, needle-like leaf with plenty of small particles. A pot that can’t filter it clogs mid-pour or sends sediment into the cup. This is the single most practical thing to inspect on a kyusu:

• Built-in ceramic mesh (sasame). Fine holes pierced directly into the clay wall behind the spout — the refinement Tokoname’s potters are known for. No metal touches the tea, and the strainer can never rust or go missing. The finer and more numerous the holes, the smoother the pour.
• Stainless band mesh (obi-ami). A ring of fine stainless mesh running around the inside wall. It gives the leaf the full width of the pot to open up, filters very fine particles, and suits deep-steamed fukamushi sencha, whose powdery leaf defeats coarser strainers.
• Flat or basket insert. A removable metal basket is easy to clean but confines the leaf to a small space. Fine for convenience; if the basket is small and deep, the leaf can’t open properly, and the brew shows it.

If you drink fukamushi sencha, prioritise a fine mesh — ceramic sasame or a stainless band — over everything else on this list.

Clay or porcelain

Unglazed clay is the traditional heart of the kyusu. Tokoname’s iron-red shudei and Banko’s purple-brown shidei are both fired without glaze, so the clay itself touches the tea. That contact is said to soften bitterness and round out the cup — a subtle effect, traditionally credited to the iron in the clay reacting with the tea’s tannins. The trade-off: unglazed clay is slightly porous and takes on the character of what you brew in it. Tea people treat that as seasoning, not contamination — but it’s why an unglazed pot is best dedicated to one family of tea rather than rotated through your whole shelf.

Porcelain and glazed stoneware stay neutral. Nothing is absorbed, nothing is added; the same pot can brew sencha in the morning and a Chinese oolong at night, and a quick rinse resets it completely. Porcelain is also the material of the white hōhin often used for gyokuro, where you want nothing between you and an expensive leaf.

Neither is “better.” Unglazed clay is a companion that grows with one tea; porcelain is a clean window onto many. If you drink one green tea daily, start with Tokoname or Banko clay — the two towns that make most of Japan’s teapots, and have for well over a century. If you graze across teas, start glazed.

Size — smaller than you think

Japanese green tea is brewed leaf-forward and short, then re-steeped. You don’t need a big pot; you need a pot that empties completely each round, because water left standing on the leaf turns the next steeping bitter.

If in doubt, go smaller. A 250 ml kyusu refilled twice makes better tea than a 500 ml pot half-emptied.

Caring for a kyusu

1. Empty the leaves promptly after the last steeping and rinse with hot water. Leaves left overnight are how a pot picks up mustiness.
2. Skip the soap on unglazed clay. The porous surface can absorb detergent flavour. Hot water and your hand are enough; for the mesh, a soft brush.
3. Dry it open and upside-down-ish. Lid off, tipped so water drains from the spout and mesh, somewhere with airflow.
4. Dedicate an unglazed pot to one type of tea. Sencha pot for sencha, hōjicha pot for hōjicha. Glazed and porcelain pots are exempt.
5. No dishwasher, no strong scrubbing. A kyusu’s walls are thin — that thinness is part of why it brews well — and the ceramic mesh is the most delicate part of the pot.

How to choose

One rule underneath it all: the kyusu is a tool for short, repeated brews. Choose the pot that empties cleanly, pours fast, and feels natural in your hand doing it — then let one good tea season it.

Meet the town behind the classic red pot in Tokoname: The Town That Makes Japan’s Teapots, or browse hand-picked, Japan-shipped tea ware on The Table.

Sources & Further Reading

• Tokoname Ware — KOGEI JAPAN — The government-designated traditional craft profile: the iron-rich shudei clay and the note that its iron is said to soften the bitterness of tea.
• Yokkaichi Banko Ware — KOGEI JAPAN — The traditional-craft profile of Yokkaichi’s teapots: the iron-rich shidei clay and the reduction firing that gives it its purple-brown colour.
• Global Japanese Tea Association — Japanese Teaware — The Kyoto-based association’s teaware overview: the kyusu’s ninety-degree handle, typical sizes, and the handleless hōhin.