History of Gomei
A poetic name (gomei) is a short phrase, usually two or three Chinese characters, written on the inside of a storage-box lid to identify and contextualize a tea utensil. The name marks season or mood, fixes provenance, and guides conversation during tea preparation (chanoyu).
Long before tea reached Japan, the court of the tenth-century capital liked to give brief titles to valued objects. Folding screens, musical instruments, and garments all received such names, borrowed from short court poems (waka). The practice offered a polite way to praise beauty without sounding direct.
Powdered tea arrived from Song-dynasty China in the late twelfth century. As utensils entered court life, the existing habit of naming naturally extended to them. Bowls, jars, and caddies began to carry small titles that blended Chinese literary allusion with local taste.
During the fifteenth-century Muromachi era, Ashikaga shoguns collected imported Chinese ware (karamono). Monks and court scribes chose gomei for these pieces and recorded them in ledgers of famous objects (meibutsu-ki). Possessing an item listed there could establish political standing or settle large debts.
Later in the century, teachers such as Murata Juko, Takeno Joo, and Sen no Rikyu shifted attention toward domestic ceramics and the plain aesthetic called wabi. Rough water jars from Iga and simple Korean bowls gained gomei once reserved for refined imports. Naming became a way to help guests see value in humble surfaces.
Sixteenth-century warfare turned utensils into portable wealth exchanged among regional lords (daimyo). Formal documents were often lost, so the gomei, remembered and repeated, preserved an object’s identity when ownership changed rapidly.
Peace under the Tokugawa shogunate allowed tea families to standardize naming rules. Two or three characters are preferred, direct praise of the maker is avoided, and once written, a gomei is not erased. If later teachers add information, they place an extra slip inside the box; the original hand remains untouched. Reading these inscriptions is part of basic study for anyone learning tea today.
Modernization after 1868 brought crystal, glass, and metal into the tearoom. Each new material accepted a name in the usual way. Contemporary potters may suggest titles at kiln openings, yet most schools grant final authority to the first senior who uses the piece in a formal preparation (temae). Practice, rather than commerce, still confirms a utensil’s life.
Current discussion includes whether to allow English names when hosting abroad, how to record alternative seasonal readings of the same characters, and what to do when old utensils surface without any written record. Whatever the answer, the small inscription continues to link object, season, and memory, inviting both newcomers and long-time practitioners to look with steadier eyes.