Mocha ware — the earthenware decorated with tree-like or feathery patterns created by applying an acidic pigment to wet alkaline slip — appears in poems about the working-class table and the art of accident; The mocha pattern — formed by the reaction of an acid solution with the alkaline slip, the tree shapes growing as if by natural process — gives poets an image of controlled accident: beauty that the potter designs but does not draw; A poem about a working-class kitchen in the nineteenth century might describe the mocha mug: "the brown tree on its band of blue, the pattern different on every piece — no two alike, the factory's one concession to the individual"; In a poem about craft and nature, mocha ware demonstrates that the kiln can imitate the forest: "the same branching principle that governs oaks governs the pattern on this mug — acid and clay discovering what roots already know"; The cheapness of mocha ware — produced quickly for ordinary households — gives poems about democratic beauty a specific example: an art form available to those who could not afford painted china; A poem about a Welsh market stall might describe mocha ware offered alongside patterned slipware: "the tree-pattern mugs for a penny each, the pattern unrepeatably itself — the cheap things, the beautiful things, sometimes the same thing."