Wood Bowls - Small

About the Wood Bowls - Small

Shallow teak bowls of this kind were everyday tableware across South and Southeast Asia, carved from offcuts rather than turned, which is why the walls vary in thickness and the profile is never a true circle. Teak was chosen for the same reason it is used for boat decks: it carries its own oil, so it resists water without a finish and does not crack when it dries.

Years outdoors have bleached the surface from the deep brown of fresh teak to a soft silvered grey. The colour sits only in the top fraction of a millimetre — a light sanding would bring the brown straight back, which is exactly why we leave them alone. Look across the rim in raking light and the facets of the carving knife are still clearly visible.

Small and shallow, they are the useful size: keys and coins by a door, salt at a table, a single candle, or a group of three at different angles on a shelf. They are decorative rather than food-safe, having spent decades unsealed. Keep them out of a dishwasher and away from direct heat; if they ever look dry, a fingertip of paste wax buffed in is more than enough.

Small bowls sell in ones and twos and we almost always have a few. Where you want a group, ask us to pick them together — the silvering varies with how long each bowl spent outside, and three chosen at random can look mismatched in a way three chosen deliberately never do. They post cheaply and arrive without incident.