Five Cups, Five Ways to Spend an Evening
五客 — "five guests" — names five cups, each inscribed with a different two-to-four character phrase: 一滴入魂 ("one drop, deep in soul"), 君幸酒 ("may you delight in wine"), 君幸茶 ("may you delight in tea"), 不予 ("none" — refusal, or absence), and one left entirely blank. Together they read less like a product line and more like five answers to the same unasked question about how an evening with a cup in hand might go.
Each cup is tiny — 30ml, barely a sip — fully hand-thrown in Jingdezhen, glazed to a soft sheen, the lip rounded enough that nothing drips after the last swallow. The calligraphy is painted in cinnabar-red glaze, the one bright accent against an otherwise quiet, understated body. They work equally well for wine or tea, no single use claimed as correct.
不予, the "none" cup, sold out first — proof, maybe, that refusal has its own kind of appeal.