Tea Caddy (chaire)

This beautiful globular jar from Thailand originally contained perfumed oils. Imported to Japan via the Southeast Asian sea route during the sixteenth century, it was then employed as a storage jar for powdered tea by the early connoisseurs of the tea ceremony. To this day, Thai ceramics are called sunkoroku, or Sawankhalok ware, in reference to the famous kilns in north-central Thailand active during the
fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.