From my mother-in-law's storage: It feels stylish and somehow dignified. How about interacting with close friends with tea sets like these sometimes? The lids help to slow down the cooling of the tea, as it tends to cool down when you're chatting after serving. In a way, it's the wisdom of our ancestors. In our coffee-loving household, we use lids like the one in photo 8 for our morning coffee. It's to keep it warm during the time lag until we actually drink it. Doing this, the coffee doesn't cool down much until I sit at the table and take my first sip. I realized, after passing 60, that the lidded teacups we serve to guests aren't just for looking fancy, but also to keep the tea from cooling down... I'm such a fool! But we're mostly a coffee-drinking family. A perfectly sized Shunkei-nuri (a type of lacquerware) square tray also came out of my mother-in-law's storage this time, and I will be listing it, so please take a look if you're interested. *It seems my mother-in-law used these, and there is a scratch on the lid of the teacup on the bottom right. I have priced them accordingly, but please use them for yourself when serving guests. *All four cups have faint, small beige dots of the same size under the "Kichikichi" mark on the bottom (photo 9). They wouldn't come off even when wiped. Upon closer inspection, they are ◎ marks. I opened the fifth cup, which was still unopened, just in case, and it had them too, so they must be on all of them from the beginning. I wonder why they were put there. I'm curious and want to know!