Fodor's Expert Review Raku Museum

Serious collectors of tea-ceremony utensils are likely to have a raku bowl in their collections. The Raku Museum displays more than 1,000 bowls and containers of subtle beauty embodying the Japanese aesthetic terms of wabi and sabi, which refer to “understated elegance” and “mature beauty.” Raku refers to a low-temperature firing technique that yields a ceramic that is soft to the touch. Raku is the family name with a long history of creating pleasing tea utensils for the shogun's use.