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Edo Kiriko Cut Glass Sake Cup: Tokyo Cut Crystal Ochoko [2026]

Tokyo 15 min read
Edo Kiriko Cut Glass Sake Cup: Tokyo Cut Crystal Ochoko [2026]
📢 PR: This article contains Amazon affiliate links (US primary, Japan secondary) (details).

Edo Kiriko (江戸切子, “Edo cut glass”) is the hand-cut glass craft of old Tokyo, conventionally dated to 1834, when Kagaya Kyubei, a glass merchant in Edo’s Odenma-cho district, began grinding patterns into the surface of glass with emery sand in imitation of imported British cut glass. An ochoko (お猪口, the small sake cup) made in this tradition carries a thin layer of colored glass cut through to the clear crystal beneath, so that the facets catch and split the light each time the cup is lifted to pour.

What makes the craft notable internationally is continuity rather than novelty. The cutting wheels concentrated in Edo’s low-city (shitamachi) — the Koto and Sumida wards along the Sumida and Arakawa rivers — and many of those family workshops still operate there today. Edo Kiriko was designated a Tokyo traditional craft in 1985 and a nationally designated traditional craft by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in 2002.

This guide is written for an international reader who wants the genuine article rather than a souvenir-grade lookalike. We cover what the geometric overlay patterns mean, how Edo Kiriko differs from the thicker-overlay Satsuma Kiriko of Kagoshima, how an ochoko differs from a guinomi or sakazuki, who this faceted sake cup suits, who should skip it, and the practical question every overseas buyer asks first — where to actually buy it, in USD or in JPY, and how it ships.

📅 Published: June 16, 2026
🔄 Last updated: June 16, 2026
⏱️ Read time: about 9 minutes
Edo Kiriko hand-cut crystal ochoko sake cup with a colored overlay and geometric faceted pattern
The Editor’s Pick: an Edo Kiriko ochoko sake cup, colored overlay cut through to clear crystal in a traditional geometric pattern such as kagome or nanako. — Image: Amazon product listing

Who this is for — and who should skip it

✅ A good fit if you…
  • Drink sake, shochu, or spirits neat and want a cup that performs as an object every pour
  • Value hand-cut work and a documented regional tradition over mass-produced pressed glass
  • Are shopping for a wedding, retirement, or milestone gift that reads as considered rather than generic
  • Want a single conversation piece for a home bar or sake shelf rather than a matched set
  • Appreciate that color sits in a thin overlay and reveals clear crystal where the wheel cuts through
❌ Probably skip it if you…
  • Need a large matched set of identical cups on a tight per-unit budget
  • Run everything through a dishwasher and will not hand-wash (cut crystal prefers gentle hand-washing)
  • Want a guaranteed dollar price today — overseas pricing on individual pieces fluctuates
  • Prefer thick, soft gradient (bokashi) cutting — that is Satsuma Kiriko, a different craft from Kagoshima
  • Are hard on glassware or have small children who handle drinkware roughly

Product overview (from published specs)

A note on data quality up front: at the time of writing, the structured product feed for this item returned only the listing reference (ASIN B0DQSQLXLK) and no live price or measured spec sheet. The table below therefore states only what can be verified from the listing identity and the craft tradition itself; unconfirmed fields are marked rather than guessed. Live pricing was unavailable at the time of writing — always confirm current figures at the retailer before purchasing.

Attribute Detail Source
Craft Edo Kiriko (Tokyo hand-cut glass), colored overlay on clear crystal Craft tradition
Type Ochoko / sake cup (small drinking vessel) Listing title
Typical pattern Traditional geometric motif (e.g., kagome, nanako) — exact motif varies by listing Craft tradition
Origin Tokyo (Koto / Sumida wards, shitamachi low-city) Craft tradition
Material Crystal / soda-lime glass with iro-kise color overlay — Unconfirmed exact composition; check manufacturer site —
Capacity / dimensions / weight Unconfirmed — check manufacturer site / listing (ochoko are typically small, on the order of 45–90 ml, but confirm the specific cup) —
Item reference ASIN B0DQSQLXLK (Amazon JP Global Store) Listing snapshot

Sources: Amazon US search (primary, moonill-20) + Amazon JP Global Store (secondary, moonill-22, sourced listing) + maker direct where applicable. Specs left as “Unconfirmed” above were absent from the fetched data and are not estimated.

📖 Glossary — key terms
  • Kiriko (切子) — “cut glass”; the technique of grinding decorative facets into glass with rotating wheels.
  • Ochoko (お猪口) — the small sake cup, usually drunk in one or two sips and refilled often; smaller than a guinomi.
  • Guinomi (ぐい呑み) / sakazuki (盃) — a larger sake cup and a shallow ceremonial sake dish, respectively; both differ from the everyday ochoko.
  • Edo (江戸) — the old name for Tokyo, used through the Edo period (1603–1868).
  • Iro-kise (色被せ) — the thin colored glass overlay laid over clear crystal; cutting through it reveals the clear layer beneath as bright lines.
  • Nanako (魚子) — “fish roe,” a dense field of small cut circles resembling clustered eggs.
  • Kagome (籠目) — “basket eyes,” a woven-bamboo lattice pattern.
  • Yarai (矢来) — a diagonal bamboo-fence motif; asanoha (麻の葉) — a six-point hemp-leaf geometry.
  • Shitamachi (下町) — Tokyo’s “low city,” the older riverside artisan and merchant districts.
  • Bokashi (ぼかし) — a soft graded edge; characteristic of Satsuma Kiriko, not Edo Kiriko.

📍 Where this comes from — place, era, and the craft tradition

📍
Where this is made
Tokyo (Tokyo, Kantō)
Eastern Tokyo’s shitamachi low-city — the Koto and Sumida wards along the Sumida and Arakawa rivers, where the cutting workshops have clustered since the 19th century.

📍 Tokyo is in Tokyo Prefecture — the plain around Tokyo in eastern Honshū.
Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, with its red gate and pagoda
Senso-ji in Asakusa anchors the shitamachi (low-city) districts of old Edo, where merchant and artisan culture — including glass cutting — took root. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Edo Kiriko is a Tokyo craft, and specifically an eastern-Tokyo one. The workshops concentrated in the shitamachi — the “low city” of Koto and Sumida wards on the eastern bank of the Sumida River — rather than in the high-ground administrative districts. This is the old commercial and artisan Tokyo: dense, riverside, and built around small workshops handed down through families. The rivers mattered for the same reason they mattered to every Edo trade — they moved goods, materials, and people through the city’s eastern flank.

The craft’s conventional birth year is 1834. In that year Kagaya Kyubei, a glass merchant in Edo’s Odenma-cho — a merchant quarter of the kind that defined commercial districts like Nihonbashi — began cutting patterns into the surface of glass using emery sand as an abrasive, in imitation of the imported British cut glass then reaching Japan. This was decorative surface work on existing glass, the seed of what would become a distinct regional style.

Modern Nihonbashi district in central Tokyo
Nihonbashi was the mercantile center of Edo; it was among such trading streets that imported cut glass first inspired Kagaya Kyubei in 1834. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The technique advanced sharply in the Meiji era (1868–1912). The new government invited the British engineer Emanuel Hauptmann to the Shinagawa Glass Works around 1881 to teach Western wheel-cutting, and that method fused with the existing Edo hand-craft — bringing the overlay-and-wheel approach that defines the style today. The hallmark is iro-kise (色被せ, “colored overlay”): a thin layer of cobalt, ruby, or amber glass is fused over clear crystal, then cut so the clear base flashes through the pattern. The signature motifs are geometric and named for everyday Edo life rather than for nobility: kagome (籠目, “basket eyes”), nanako (魚子, “fish roe”), asanoha (麻の葉, “hemp leaf”), and yarai (矢来, “bamboo fence”).

📜 Timeline — Edo Kiriko
  • 1603 — Edo becomes the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate; the city grows into Japan’s largest.
  • 1834 — Kagaya Kyubei of Odenma-cho cuts patterns into glass with emery sand, copying imported British cut glass — the conventional founding of Edo Kiriko.
  • 1868 — The Meiji era opens; Edo is renamed Tokyo.
  • c. 1881 — British engineer Emanuel Hauptmann teaches Western wheel-cutting at the Shinagawa Glass Works, fusing it with the Edo hand-craft.
  • 20th century — The craft concentrates in the Koto and Sumida shitamachi wards near the Sumida and Arakawa rivers.
  • 1985 — Edo Kiriko is designated a Tokyo traditional craft.
  • 2002 — METI designates Edo Kiriko a nationally recognized traditional craft.
  • 2026 — Workshops in Koto and Sumida continue cutting glass by hand for sake cups, whisky glasses, and tableware.
X-shaped Sakura pedestrian bridge over the Sumida River linking Taito and Sumida wards
The Sumida River threads through Koto and Sumida wards, the working-class Edo neighborhoods that remain the heart of Edo Kiriko production today. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What “still being made here” means is concrete. The cutting work remains hand-guided against rotating wheels, and the eastern Tokyo wards still hold a working cluster of named houses — among them well-known makers such as Hirota Glass and the Toyo Sasaki / Kagami lines — that keep the technique alive as a living trade rather than a museum exercise. The motifs cut today are the same kagome and nanako geometries that the craft settled on generations ago.

Tokyo Skytree seen from below against a clear sky
Tokyo Skytree rises over Sumida ward, the same district whose family glass studios keep hand-cutting Edo Kiriko by the thousands of facets. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

“The color is only skin-deep on purpose — the cutter’s whole job is to reach through the overlay and let the clear crystal underneath do the shining.”

One distinction matters before you buy, because the two are easily confused. Edo Kiriko is not the same as Satsuma Kiriko, the cut glass of Kagoshima in the far southwest. Satsuma Kiriko uses a thicker color overlay and a soft graded edge (bokashi) where the color fades into clear; Edo Kiriko uses a thinner overlay and crisp, bright cut lines. Both are legitimate Japanese cut-glass traditions — they are simply different crafts from different ends of the country.

Which finish should you choose?

This piece is listed in 5 finishes. The photos below are the actual 色 options on the listing right now — pick the one you want and confirm it on the product page before ordering, since hand-finished wares vary slightly piece to piece.

Price snapshot across stores

Prices in USD are approximate and depend on the current exchange rate (¥150/USD baseline as of mid-2026); the JPY price is the authoritative one for the specific listed item. Live pricing was unavailable from the fetched data at the time of writing — verify at the retailer before buying.

Store Item / Variant Price (JPY + USD est.) Notes
🇺🇸 Amazon US (search) Browse Japanese Edo Kiriko & cut-glass sake cups varies (USD) Best if you are shopping from the US — Prime shipping, USD pricing, no international customs. Amazon US carries Edo Kiriko and Japanese cut glass from various makers — useful for comparing patterns and price tiers; the exact piece here is sourced from Japan (next row).
🇯🇵 Amazon JP Global Store The specific Edo Kiriko ochoko sake cup (ASIN B0DQSQLXLK) Price unavailable at time of writing — check listing Ships internationally from Japan. This is the sourced listing for the item in this guide.
Maker direct Hirota Glass / Toyo Sasaki / Kagami lines varies (JPY) Maker sites carry the full pattern range; international shipping support varies by maker.
Proxy services (Buyee / Tenso) Forwarding for Japan-only listings item price + service fee Useful when a pattern is only sold on domestic Japanese stores; adds a forwarding fee on top of shipping. International shipping on a single cup typically runs roughly $15–$40 to the US and EU, and higher elsewhere; orders above your local de minimis threshold may attract customs duty or import VAT on arrival.

What it does well

✨ Light play in the hand
Hand-cut facets through a colored overlay split the light differently with every turn — the cup earns its place even before a pour.

🏅 Documented tradition
A Tokyo traditional craft (1985) and a METI-designated craft (2002), traceable to 1834 — provenance that a generic sake cup cannot claim.

🎁 Reads as a real gift
A single faceted ochoko works as a milestone or wedding gift in a way a boxed set of plain cups does not.

🍶 Built for sake and spirits
The ochoko form suits sake and shochu drunk neat — a purposeful drinking vessel, not a display-only piece.

Weaknesses and things to verify before buying

  1. No confirmed price in the data. The fetched feed returned the listing reference but no live price; only the Amazon JP listing snapshot is available, and live pricing may have shifted since the writing date. Confirm the current figure before buying.
  2. Specs are unconfirmed. Capacity, exact dimensions, weight, and precise glass composition were not in the dataset. Check the listing or maker site if a specific size matters to you — ochoko vary widely in volume.
  3. Pattern and color vary by listing. “Traditional geometric motif” covers several patterns (kagome, nanako, and others) in several overlay colors. The exact motif and color you receive depend on the specific variant — confirm before ordering.
  4. Hand-wash recommended. Cut crystal generally prefers gentle hand-washing; dishwasher use risks clouding and chipping. Not ideal if you will not hand-wash.
  5. Fragility in transit. A single cut-glass cup shipped internationally is at real risk of breakage; verify the seller’s packaging and breakage/return policy.
  6. Customs and duties. Cross-border orders above your local de minimis threshold may attract import duty or VAT collected on arrival.
  7. Easy to confuse with Satsuma Kiriko. If you specifically want the thick-overlay, soft-gradient (bokashi) look, that is a different Kagoshima craft — make sure you are buying the Tokyo Edo Kiriko style you intend.

Conclusion — which buyer type are you?

💎 Premium
You want a named-workshop, hand-cut piece and treat it as an heirloom-grade gift. Buy direct from the maker or the specific JP Global Store listing, and choose the pattern deliberately.

🛒 Mainstream
You want one beautiful, genuine Edo Kiriko ochoko for your own shelf. The Editor’s Pick below is the natural starting point — search Amazon US first, fall back to JP.

💰 Budget
Hand-cut crystal carries a hand-cut price. If budget is the priority, compare entry-level patterns on Amazon US, or consider a related Japanese glass like Tsugaru Bidoro from the compare box above.

🚫 Skip it
You need a large dishwasher-safe set, or you want the soft bokashi gradient look. This is the wrong craft for that — look at plain crystal sets or Satsuma Kiriko instead.

Other ways to approach this purchase

⏳ Wait for a sale
Glassware turns up in seasonal and gift-season promotions. If you are not in a hurry, watch the listing and buy on a dip.

♻️ Refurbished / secondhand
Cut crystal holds up well, so vintage and secondhand Edo Kiriko appears via Japanese resellers and proxy services — inspect photos closely for chips on the cut edges.

🎟️ Points & rewards
If you already hold Amazon points or a store-card balance, a single-cup purchase is a sensible way to spend them down.

🚫 Skip the upgrade
If your current sake cups serve you well and you do not value the cut-glass craft angle, there is no functional reason to switch.

🏆 Editor’s Pick

🏆 Editor’s Pick — the Edo Kiriko sake cup we would start with

A Hirota Glass / Toyo Sasaki–lineage Edo Kiriko ochoko sake cup — colored overlay (iro-kise) cut through to clear crystal in a traditional geometric pattern such as kagome or nanako (ASIN B0DQSQLXLK). It is the most representative single piece for a first Edo Kiriko purchase.

  • Genuine hand-cut work from the eastern-Tokyo cut-glass tradition, not a pressed-glass imitation.
  • The ochoko form is purpose-built for sake and shochu drunk neat — a cup you will actually use.
  • One faceted cup works equally as a personal upgrade or as a milestone gift that reads as considered.

Live pricing was unavailable from the fetched data at the time of writing; the JPY price on the JP Global Store listing is authoritative — confirm before buying.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What is an ochoko, and how is it different from a guinomi or sakazuki?

An ochoko is the small everyday sake cup, usually drunk in one or two sips and refilled often. A guinomi is a larger cup that holds more, and a sakazuki is a shallow, wide ceremonial dish used at weddings and formal toasts. All three are sake vessels; the ochoko is the most casual and the most common.

What is the difference between Edo Kiriko and Satsuma Kiriko?

Edo Kiriko is the cut glass of Tokyo, with a thin colored overlay and crisp, bright cut lines. Satsuma Kiriko is from Kagoshima and uses a thicker overlay with a soft graded edge (bokashi) where the color fades into clear. They are two distinct Japanese cut-glass traditions from opposite ends of the country.

Can I put an Edo Kiriko sake cup in the dishwasher?

Hand-washing is generally recommended for cut crystal. Dishwasher cycles risk clouding the surface and chipping the cut edges over time. If you will not hand-wash your glassware, this is probably not the right purchase for you.

Does it ship internationally from Japan?

The Amazon JP Global Store lists this item and ships to most major destinations. International shipping on a single cup typically runs roughly $15–$40 to the US and EU, with higher costs to other regions. Because cut glass is fragile, confirm the seller’s packaging and breakage policy first.

Will I have to pay customs duties?

Possibly. Orders above your country’s de minimis threshold may attract import duty or VAT, collected by your local authorities on arrival rather than by the seller. Check your country’s threshold before ordering.

Why does the article not show a firm price?

At the time of writing, only the Amazon JP listing reference was available in our data and live pricing was not returned. Glass pricing also fluctuates with promotions and exchange rates. The JPY price on the listing is authoritative — verify it at the retailer before buying.

Is this a good gift?

A single hand-cut Edo Kiriko ochoko works well as a wedding, retirement, or milestone gift for someone who drinks sake or shochu. It carries a documented Tokyo craft tradition, which reads as more considered than a generic boxed cup set.

jpmono.com is curated by a Japan-based editorial team (working out of Toyama in the Hokuriku region and Nara in Kansai) and is independent. We do not take payment from the makers we feature; income comes from affiliate links. We do not physically test every product — we read maker specs and source listings.

📢 Affiliate Disclosure — This article contains affiliate links from the Amazon Associates Program. The primary path is Amazon US (amazon.com) via search — many of these hand-forged Japanese craft items are not individually listed on amazon.com, but Amazon US carries comparable Japanese kitchen and home goods, and commissions on whatever the visitor purchases through the search link go to support this site. The secondary path is Amazon JP Global Store (amazon.co.jp), which is where the specific items covered in this guide are sourced from and which ships internationally to most major destinations. If you make a purchase through either of these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Prices and availability shown are based on data at the time of writing and may have changed — always verify at the retailer before purchasing. USD figures shown alongside JPY are approximate (¥150/USD baseline as of mid-2026); the JPY price is the authoritative one for the specific listed item.

🤖 This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the source listing data. Specifications and prices are drawn from available listing data at the time of writing and may have changed; verify details at the retailer before purchasing.

Affiliate disclosure: jpmono.com may earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

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