Bofura (earthenware water kettle)
A round thin-walled earthenware kettle with a side handle and a small spout, set on the senchado stove to boil water. It is the counterpart to the Chinese sha diao and shares its logic: a thin clay wall over charcoal heats a small volume quickly and is not asked to hold heat afterwards.
Identity
- Category
- Kettle
- Native name
- ボーフラ
- Romanised
- bofura, boufura
- Also called
- sencha water kettle, clay boiling kettle
- Material
- Thin unglazed or lightly glazed earthenware with a cane or clay handle
- Typical capacity
- 300–800 ml
- Skill level
- Advanced
Porous — this changes how it is used
Porous. It takes up a trace of every tea brewed in it and gives some of that back to the next, which is why such a vessel is kept for one tea rather than shared across a shelf.
Porous body, water only, so no dedication convention applies. As with any thin unglazed vessel it should not be heated damp on the outside and should not be left standing full.
Where it comes from
Japanese, and specific to senchado. The form follows Chinese literati tea models rather than chanoyu ones, which is the same lineage the ryoro stove comes from.
Named here rather than presented as generic equipment. The object belongs to a practice, and TeaHQ describes it from the outside.
If you do not own one
Any kettle. The frequently repeated claim that clay-boiled water is softer than metal-boiled water applies here as it does to the sha diao, and TeaHQ cannot source it either time.
This one is not marked essential. The tea can be made without it.
Brewing methods it is used for
- Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
- Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.
Tea types it suits
Care and maintenance
Never place it over heat with a wet exterior and never let it boil dry. Thin earthenware over charcoal is a consumable; cracks are the normal end of one.
Other kettles
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. No external source stands behind the description, the material or the account of how the object is cared for. Where the record names a tradition, that attribution is TeaHQ’s own reading of common practice rather than a citation.
In the chronology
- The eighteenth century — Senchadō, and the monk who sold tea in the street
TeaHQ names no maker, brand or shop and has nothing to sell. Nothing on this page should be read as advice to buy the object — the substitute note above exists because owning it is usually optional.