Senshuraku is upon us and tonight we will see one of our favorite gladiators win the Championship and hoist the Emperor’s Cup. But as fans of sumo know, the Emperor’s Cup is only the tip of the iceberg, the start of a rather lengthy and fascinating procession of trophies and gifts from various sponsors around Japan, and around the globe.
One of the trophies is a massive, porcelain teacup presented by the Hungarian Embassy, called the Hungarian-Japanese Friendship Cup. László Szesztay, Commercial Director of the Herend Porcelain Manufactory in the town of Herend, Hungary was very kind to sit with me (via Zoom) and tell me more about Herend Porcelain and the infamous teacup.
Many fans will remember that the trophy was originally a large vase, nearly 4 ft tall and 82 pounds. Sponsoring a yusho prize was the idea of Suzuki Takao, official importer of Herend porcelain in Japan. He had been importing Herend products since the 1970s and they have been sponsoring the yusho prize in conjunction with the Hungarian Embassy since 1986.
Suzuki’s son, Daisuke, runs the import business now and he came up with the idea of the sumo-sized teacup that we will see tonight, and which replaced the vase in 2019. The trophy itself remains there with the Sumo Kyokai but the wrestler is awarded with a tea set. They are able to pick from about 20 patterns. I presume Hakuho has them all, twice. The dude probably enjoys tea on a different set each day for a whole month. (In reality, he has probably provided them as gifts to tanimachi, or supporters/patrons.)
Each piece of porcelain is hand-painted by Herend artisans. They use the finest clay, feldspar, and quartz, quarried from around Europe. While pottery is fired at 700 to 800 degrees, porcelain is fired at 1400 degrees. The bisque is then glazed and painted. There’s a great video from their website, so I’ve embedded it here.
In 1986, the Herend Porcelain Manufactory was owned by the State. After the Fall of Communism, the state sold off 75% of the company to the workers. So now, the workers collectively own 75% of the company but the state has retained a 25% stake. Big decisions are made at the annual meeting with the worker-owners voting on the issues. Day-to-day affairs are obviously handled by management. The town of Herend is quite the company town and the Herend Porcelain Manufactory is the largest employer.
There is a museum and you can tour the manufactory. Can you say, “Road Trip?” Tachiai is in the early phases of planning just such a trip. If you want to see how things are doing over in Herend, there’s a webcam. I love webcams. We need to bring back the webcam in formats that do not include peoples’ bedrooms. Just saying. Looks like it snowed there, too! It didn’t stick here but that was quite the surprise after several weeks of balmy 70s and 60s.
So, where can you get your own Herend teacup? In the US, Herend products are imported by a group based near DC but they have stores all over the country (via their Store Locator Map). Internationally, you can check out Herend Japan and the main Herend website here.
The big question though: who will be sipping tea in a brand new Herend teacup, Hoshoryu or Kotozakura?
Discover more from Tachiai (立合い)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Incredible story !!!!! ♥♥♥
So fascinating ! Thank you !
Thank you very much!
Thank you for the story.
Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed it.
Andy, I have just come back from a week in Hungary, primarily in Budapest, but one day we had a bit of a break and went en masse for an outing to Lake Balaton and to a porcelain demonstration at the factory in Herend. It was great fun, the staff are so skilled, yet so happy to demonstrate their artistry. Even as my Hungarian is limited, their English wasn’t a lot better, so we conversed in a mish-mash of various European languages and had a blast!
Sorry, went off-piste there, great post, thank you!
What a coincidence! That’s awesome. Did you know about the sumo connection while you were there? I’ll have to look into Lake Balaton. I wonder if it is a nice recreation area.
No, I didn’t before I went, but there was another sumo fan on the tour that I overheard speaking about ‘Yokozuna’ (in English) and I decided to be quite brazen and interject myself into their conversation. We had what he and his wife referred to as a good “chin-wag” over the cup of tea you get at the end of the demo (in a porcelain Herend cup no less).
The lake is a big tourist destination in Hungary, but it was so damn cold whilst I was there, we ended up not going out on the lake itself. A poke around little towns (Tihany and Balatonfured), coffees and cake (what calories?), old churches, and a bracing walk from Tihany to the tip of the peninsula that cuts across the lake was just great fun. We were a bit herded around as it was a work-related jaunt (though counted as a day’s holiday, gee thanks). If you’re going soon-ish, there’s a festival in, I think, February to vanquish winter and welcome spring – they have Krampus type creatures to terrorise folks, and so on.
If you’re planning on going when it’s warmer, then there’s swimming and all the usual water-based sports, beaches, and there are wineries in the hills behind Lake Balaton as well.
Budapest is only about 1.5 hours away; if you’ve never been it’s definitely worth a visit.
Wow, I’m a Hungarian sumo fan and I never knew that Herend porcelain was among the yusho prizes (I knew there were many but of course we only ever see a small part of the long award ceremony in the broadcast). Thanks so much for this post!
(A full Herend dinnerware set that my grandparents had had made for their wedding in 1944 is one of my family’s most prized posessions. It is so beautiful and I love the way it elevates a festive meal – even though on such occasions I always have to spend an hour on all fours getting the various plates out of their boxes at the bottom of our tiny pantry, and another putting them back. Thankfully they do really well in the dishwasher :)
Would you like to share a picture of your dinnerware set? That’s pretty awesome that it’s been handed down through the family for 80 years!
I’d love to but I can’t figue out how to insert a picture here, so a link will have to do (they still make the same design): https://www.herendexperts.com/herend-decors/classical-style/indian-basket-herend-sets/
The pattern is called “Indian basket” – ours is in green and looks just like the plates and bowls you can see here, except for the tiny bits where they have gold paint – because the civilian use of gold was restricted during ww2, they had to use a yellow/ochre color instead, which kind of makes them even more special.
That’s a very nice pattern! Do you use it much? I imagine next time you use them, it will have an interesting connection to your family…and sumo!
I would prefer the big macaroon
https://x.com/tachiai_blog/status/1858251447579668529?t=7O1VH1Z0JxCaz8Zb-T867Q&s=19
I didn’t know the trophy was replaced, as I don’t watch the ceremony any more. It was the nicest trophy of them all, but the teacup is more unique and more Herend. We also have a full set of Indian basket pattern dinnerware (multicolour) in the family. Fans of porcelain, you can also check out the other 2 manufactories in Hungary, Zsolnay and Hollóházi, they are very good too.