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They say the key to a good tasting experience is a well-made sake cup. Perfectly crafted, these cups have an incredibly thin rim, making the sake glide perfectly over your tongue, coating it in a way that makes you forget you have a cup on your lips. Most sake cups end up using materials like porcelain and glass due to their heat resistance and ability to be made with intricate thin rims… however, designer Kenji Abe believes this condition makes metal a perfect candidate for saké cup design . Abe’s cup series, titled Hakusaku, explores the use of duralumin (aluminum alloy) to make beautifully intricate saké cups. The cups come in the three traditional shapes/profiles and have a 0.6mm rim, giving you the feeling of drinking the sake directly without even feeling the cup.
Designer: Kenji Abe
Traditional cups also come in a variety of shapes, from the classic straight-edged cup to the bowl-shaped cup and the trumpet-shaped cup. Each of these cups changes the saké drinking experience, as does the material. It’s unclear whether aluminum cups change the taste of sake the way they do wine, but the metal construction of the cup plays an important role in thermal conductivity, allowing your lips and tongue to feel the cold metal before the chilled sake covers you. language.
Each glass is made from a single piece of duralumin, an aluminum alloy known for its durability. Microtextured to absolute perfection, the cups have a gorgeous satin finish that makes them gorgeous to look at, and instead of leaving each cup blank, Abe chose to work a gorgeous geometric texture onto them. This ‘kiriko’ texture inspired by cut glass not only plays a role in giving each glass its distinctive aesthetic, but also increases the surface area to prevent the warmth of your fingers from reaching the saké and changing its temperature .
Designed to be more durable than porcelain or glass, clinking Hakusaku sake feels much more satisfying, with the distinctive clinking sound of metal against metal.
The straight-edged cup is reminiscent of a shot glass, with a design that requires you to tilt your cup up and tilt your head back as you take a sip. This allows the alcohol to flow straight into your mouth, spending less time on your tongue and hitting your throat directly for that warm feeling.
The bowl-shaped cup creates a wide rim that allows the sake’s aromatic notes to hit your nose as you sip. The wide rim also allows you to taste more sake with each sip.
Finally, the trumpet-shaped cup allows you to observe and enjoy the subtle flavors of the sake. The wide rims mean you’re asked to take sips rather than a sip, allowing you to enjoy the sake over time.
Each cup is meticulously machined from a single duralumin billet
