What is guinomi and how to use them?
Guinomi is a small cup used to drink Japanese sake. As the name suggests, it’s designed so that it holds only one (big) sip of sake. There are so many varieties of guinomi, and most Japanese pottery brands offer them. Good quality guinomis are beautiful, but could come with a good price tag. If you don’t drink sake (or other rather strong alcohol), what do you use them for to justify the price?
Guinomi selections of Satsuma yaki (Satsuma ware)
Although guinomi is usually made of ceramics, there are brands that leverage other materials such as tin alloy, glass or bamboo.
Nosaku is Japanese top-notch tinware manufacturer.
You can see a sake server and guinomi cups in the picture
Guinomi from Satsuma suzu manufacturer.
Satsuma, the current Kagoshima in Southern Japan, used to have tin mines.
Because guinomi can come in different materials and design, many people collect them. And that’s when it becomes fun to use them. “More the merrier” applies to guinomi.
For example, uou can use guinomi as wee little bowls to serve meals in Japanese kaiseki-style. As you may already know, the gist of traditional Japanese cuisine is “little bit of everything nature gave us.” Ingredients such as seafood, vegetables, tofu or fruits are carefully and meticulously prepared and served in small portions. This particular dish (you could call it modern 八寸 (hassun)) seem to use guinomi for most dishes, if not all. As you can see, most of them are made of ceramic, but one of them is glass. It’s fun to examine the variety of design.
In your everyday cooking, guinomi can become handy to serve condiments or small deserts. For parties, you can use them to decorate your table by letting some flower petals floating on water.
