HARTMUD STUDIO

As a guarantee for our work standard and quality we make the oath…

1. To force the truth out of the clay mud with our bare hands. With complete disregard for mass-production we have chosen to build handcrafted unique and highest quality tableware that bear the signature of the maker through their distinguishing irregularities.

2. To fire our ceramics to last for 4000 years. Each piece is created in a slow and intensive hand made process that produces the highest quality of ceramic ware, finished with stoneware glaze and fired at least at 1,200°C (2,192°F) – transforming clay into vitrified stoneware – a material we call „fossil of beauty“ because of its longevity and robustness. In fact archeological findings reveal stoneware items that date from 2,500 B.C.

3. To regard form and function as one. We are dedicated to what design philosophers call „free and open form“ – best represented in the bowl, the most ancient, natural and iconic dish of mankind. It reminds us of two hands formed together to scoop water – an act our species performed in a life saving daily routine for millions of years. From these water scooping hands the potters invented the bowl as perfect symbol of the adage „form and function are one“.

4. To re-invent the culinary spaces. We aim at enriching and refining our daily experience of eating and drinking and making it sacred again: we create the tableware for a generation that regards food and drink as a heartfelt passion and who feels an uncompromising commitment to quality and environmental sustainability.

5. To use only natural materials. Put very simple: for our ceramic tableware we use only earth (best fat clay from Germany’s Westerwald region), heat (efficient techniques from sustainable energy sources) and natural stoneware glazes (silica for vitrification and various metal oxides)

Hartmud is part of the worldwide makers movement that self empowers our human talents and frees us from mass production and blind consumerism.

We call it the culinary revolution: the people and restaurants who use our tableware have transformed their habits of producing and cooking food, becoming more focused on local ingredients and spreading culinary consciousness, preserving local traditions, rediscovering ancient techniques and growing forgotten varieties.

It is Hartmuds life mission to enhance and refine this new food movement with craft tableware. We are adding the hand made dinnerware to the home cooked food sourced at local markets, we design and craft the serving ware for the coffee houses and new food eateries that redefine our cities, and we fashion the unique vases for the organic flowers picked in the wilderness.

Merging natural beauty and maverick handicraft, ethereal intuition and fiery drive, Hartmud Studio was founded in 2016 by Isabella Zeiß and Jerome Alsoufi.

In 2020 Hartmud has become a veritable art collective, gathering potters, designers and artists alike who share the founders passion for timeless aesthetics, distinctive quality and the complete overhaul of the tableware spaces in Germany and abroad.

That said, at the core of it all being craftsmen means everything to us.

Part of a generation that was raised in the myth that academic work is more valuable than craft we had to undergo a deep transformation of believes in order to find our calling. We swapped the clean office work spaces for the raw and muddy clay matter. It’s the volcanic heat in the kiln hardening our works, not an algorithm smoothing out our lives. Relentless hours on the potter’s wheel and sore hands taught us humbleness; and the smell of moist clay is our reward of being independent.

We are potters and grateful for being part of a professional lineage that is thirteen-thousand-years old.

At Hartmud Studio we are committed to serve only the gastronomic avant-garde, thus we love to realize projects with food and coffee entrepreneurs who are really redefining the experience of eating and drinking and value the true spirit of entrepreneurial cooperation: mutual benevolence, the resolve to achieve perfection together and the knowledge that where my competence ends is where my partners competence starts, and vice versa.

Sure,  the reputation for our ultra hard, consistent quality cups and mugs for specialty coffee has put our wares in roasteries and coffee shops throughout Germany. But we’re still a niche brand, known only to the true connoisseurs and hardcore baristas. We don’t expect to have our cups on display at every coffee corner of the town. The selected few suffice, thank you. All that in mind, you still get the feeling of being truly blessed when what you love and do creates a resonance of pure elegance. So join us for the culinary revolution.

References:

Nürnberg craft coffee roastery Rösttrommel

Frankfurt craft coffee roastery Hoppenworth & Ploch

The Hilton Frankfurt Hudson Yards Bar

French gourmet restaurant L’ecume

Frankfurt coffee saloon Kaffeemacherei

Darmstadt specialty coffee bar Timms Cafe

Frankfurt high-end concept eatery Trinitii

Vegetarian Michelin star restaurant Seven Swans

Hanging Gardens project for Design hotel group 25hours hotels

A case for ceramic liquor ware for Craft Gin label Unterholz Gin

Cup supplier for the Rhein-Main Coffee Festival

Collection at luxury concept store THE LISTENER

Workshop program on behalf of the City of Frankfurt am Main

Wiesbaden craft coffee label Maldaner Coffee Roasters

In fact, with a natural demand to “take those beautiful cups home”, most of our gastronomical clients do decide to sell our collection at their venue.

If you are at the forefront of specialty coffee looking for the right hard cups, or a progressive food entrepreneur looking for a one-of-a-kind tableware series, or if you decide to exhibit our tableware collection in your store, don’t hesitate to contact us.