It opens at dawn. By afternoon, it is already gone.

The asagao (朝顔) – the morning glory is perhaps the most Japanese of all summer flowers. It blooms in the early hours, vivid and complete, and fades before the day has fully arrived. For centuries, poets and tea masters have returned to it for the same reason: it understands impermanence better than any other flower. It does not try to last.

There is no better motif for a summer tea bowl.

The hira-chawan (平茶碗) was designed for summer – wide-mouthed, low and open, built to let the heat of matcha rise and dissipate. In this form, made from heat-resistant glass by the hand of Yagi Kaiho (八木海峰), the seasonal intention becomes visual.

Glass reveals what ceramic conceals. The vivid green of whisked matcha shows through the vessel itself. The morning glories painted on the exterior glow differently as the light shifts, deeper in morning shadow, luminous in afternoon sun.

Each bowl produced by Yagi Kaiho is painted individually, one at a time. The morning glories on this piece exist here alone, they were not transferred, not printed, not repeated. The brush moved across the glass once, and what you see is exactly what happened.

The glass is heat-resistant, designed to hold hot matcha without risk. It is lighter than ceramic, cooler to the touch, and entirely different in the hand.

To use this bowl on a summer morning is to hold the season at its most honest, brief, beautiful, and gone before you are ready.

Only one exists.