Sen no Rikyū

Rikyū came from a merchant family in the port town of Sakai, near Osaka. He became tea master to two of the most powerful warlords of his time, first Oda Nobunaga and then Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In that age, the tea ceremony had become a show of gold and wealth. Rikyū went the other way. He shrank the tea room down to just two tatami mats. He made the doorway so low that everyone had to bow to come in. He replaced costly Chinese objects with rough local bowls, bamboo and bare wood. He summed up the spirit of tea in four words, wa, kei, sei, jaku: harmony, respect, purity and calm.

His closeness to power was also what destroyed him. In 1591, for reasons historians still argue about, Hideyoshi ordered Rikyū to kill himself. Rikyū died in his own way. He held one last tea gathering, served his guests and gave away his tea utensils. Then he took his life. His descendants founded three great tea schools, Omotesenke, Urasenke and Mushakōjisenke, and they still teach in his line today. His belief lives on too: a cracked, plain bowl can hold more beauty than a golden one. That idea still lies close to the heart of Japanese taste.