When we lived in Okinawa, my parents must have enjoyed the culture. Mom bought some beautiful housewares while there, which came with us to the States. One of the most precious to me is a coffee, tea and sake set that I can only guess is Japanese. It looks ancient to me, although I’m not sure how ancient it really is. Mom had it stored in some kitchen cabinets back home. I made sure to confiscate it and send it back home to Arizona before our old house sold. I’ve done research online to try and figure out if it has a pattern name, but to no avail. The set includes a teapot and several teacups, a sake set, including tiny little sake cups, a large punch bowl, a pitcher, coffee pot and coffee cups, a sugar jar and creamer, and candlestick holders. The porcelain is very thick and heavy, not thin like china. It’s almost an antiquish pale blue-green in color with soft charcoal colored bottoms and crackled appearance both on the outside and inside. There are also heart shaped inlays cut into each piece. I can’t imagine how they did that, and each piece has gold trimmings and a gold horse and/or butterfly on the outside and bottom inside. I think it’s absolutely beautiful and am so glad to have it in my possession.

This is pretty much the whole set, with the exception of a few other cups.

This is my favorite piece. I love the bamboo handle.

This is the very large punch bowl. Each piece in the set has the same gold horse adorned on the outside.

The bottom inside of the punch bowl has two horses

In addition to the gold horse, both the teapot and coffee pot have what looks like a butterfly sitting on a branch on the other side. I’m not sure if it’s a butterfly, but it kind of looks like it.

This is the inside of one of the small coffee cups.

This is the sake set. The little sake cups look much larger here than they really are.

Sugar Jar and Creamer

I have the set displayed in some of our kitchen cabinets with glass panels. However, the cabinets just don’t do it justice. One day, it would be nice to display it in a china cabinet, or something similar. Wish I knew where my mom bought the set and if there’s any background or significance to the horse and butterfly.