Juniper
Retired2000-2001 · Color No. 119
Introducing Juniper color, made by The Fiesta Tableware Company from 2000 to 2001. It's a rich and earthy shade of blue-green, reminiscent of the aromatic juniper berries found in nature. Juniper adds a touch of rustic charm and tranquility to any tablescape. Mix and match Juniper with colors like White and Sunflower for a fresh and natural table setting, or pair it with Plum and Slate for a cozy and inviting combination.
Production
Juniper was retired in 2001, so it is a hunt for secondhand pieces now. Fiesta Factory Direct is where the colors still being made are, if you are filling a set.
Shop Fiesta Factory Direct (opens in a new tab)Notes on Juniper
Juniper managed one year - introduced in 2000 alongside Cinnabar, retired in 2001 - which puts it among the scarcest Post 86 colors. It's a muted blue-green, quite dark and quite gray, and genuinely hard to categorize: it sits about equally close to Evergreen and Lapis, and it reads differently depending on what's next to it. That ambiguity is probably part of why it didn't last. It's a color that rewards being used sparingly, as one piece in a table of neutrals rather than a full setting.
Using Juniper on a table
Juniper is soft enough to sit beside almost anything. It works as a bridge between two stronger colors that would otherwise argue. Its mid lightness (L* 40) means most food reads against it without either washing out or vanishing. It separates strongly from a white cloth (6.5:1) and less so from dark wood.
Below, 5 combinations built only from colors Fiesta has actually produced. Each says which rule it follows, and which pieces you can still buy today.
The pairing in its own description
Named in the descriptionThese colors are named alongside Juniper in this guide's description of it.
Buy these to go with it
Juniper was retired in 2001, but these are all in production now - the set you can actually finish buying.
Opposite on the wheel
Persimmon sits roughly opposite Juniper in hue, which is the highest-contrast pairing the palette offers. The neutrals keep it from shouting.
All blue
Every color here is from the blue family, arranged light to dark. A single-family table reads calm and deliberate rather than busy.
- Sky
- Peacock
-
Your color Juniper
- Blue (Cobalt)
Three-way split
Heather and Lemongrass sit about a third of the way around the color wheel from Juniper in each direction. Evenly spaced hues stay lively without any one taking over.
- White
- Lemongrass
-
Your color Juniper
- Heather
Where Juniper sits in the line
Juniper took over from Sapphire as Fiesta's blue, and is noticeably more muted than it - a clearly different glaze rather than a reformulation (ΔE 21.4). It lasted 1 year where the median for its era is 7, which is why it turns up so rarely. In 2000 it arrived alongside Cinnabar. What else happened in 2000 →
Closest colors in the palette
Ranked by CIEDE2000 (ΔE) against Juniper. Under about ΔE 5 two colors are hard to tell apart side by side - useful when you are identifying an unmarked piece.
On the table alongside Juniper
13 colors were in production at the same time. The 10 nearest in the timeline: