The kiln is in the back room.
Kiln started as a pottery studio that needed a reason for people to stay. The coffee came second, and then it became the reason.
A studio first
Mara Okafor signed the lease on 14 Alder Lane in 2019 for the light and the floor drain. The front room was meant to be a gallery; by the second winter it had an espresso machine and four stools.
Visitors kept asking where the cups came from. Now every piece on the bar is numbered, and you can buy the one you drank from.
From clay to cup
A cup takes about three weeks to reach the bar. These are the five stops it makes.
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Thrown
Wedged clay is centred and pulled up on the wheel. The rings are the potter’s fingers.
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Trimmed
Leather-hard, the cup is turned over, its foot cut and its handle pulled and joined.
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Bisque
A first firing to 1,000 °C makes it hard but still thirsty, ready to take a glaze.
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Glazed
Dipped by hand. The line where the glaze stops is left showing, on purpose.
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On the bar
Fired to 1,240 °C on a Thursday night, numbered on Friday, filled by Saturday.
Who makes them
Every piece carries its maker’s stamp on the foot.
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Mara Okafor
Founder, potter
Throws the morning cups and the milk pitchers.
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Jun Ito
Potter, glaze chemist
Mixes the ash and tenmoku glazes from the studio’s own recipes.
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Priya Shah
Head of coffee
Chooses the beans and decides which cup each drink goes in.
Every Thursday night
The kiln is loaded at nine, after the bar closes, with around forty pieces packed shelf over shelf.
It climbs slowly to 1,240 °C, holds there until the cones bend, then spends the night cooling with the door shut. Opening it on Friday morning is the best part of the week.
Plan a visitCups that crack go back into the clay bin. Nothing leaves the studio as waste.