Schools of Japanese Tea Ceremony - Current Schools

Current Schools

• Anrakuan-ryū 安楽庵流 (founder: Anrakuan Sakuden )
• Chinshin-ryū 鎮信流 (founder: Matsura Chinshin {1622-1703], who was magistrate of Hizen Hirado, present-day Hirado in Nagasaki Prefecture). The school takes after the "warrior-house style of tea" (buke-cha) that was promoted by the daimyō Katagiri Sekishū. The school is also known as the Sekishū-ryū Chinshin-ha　(Chinshin branch of the Sekishū school).
• Edosenke-ryū 江戸千家流 (founder: Kawakami Fuhaku )
• Enshū-ryū 遠州流 (founder: Kobori Masakazu a.k.a. Kobori Enshū)
• Fujibayashi-ryū 藤林流 (a.k.a. Sekishū-ryū Sōgen-ha; see Sekishū-ryū below)
• Fuhaku-ryū 不白流 (founder: Kawakami Fuhaku). This school, also called the Omotesenke Fuhaku-ryū, evolved after the death of Kawakami Fuhaku, when this faction split from the Edosenke school that he had founded.
• Hayami-ryū 速水流 (founder: Hayami Sōtatsu, who learned tea under the 8th Urasenke iemoto, Yūgensai, and was allowed by him to found a school of his own in Okayama)
• Higo-koryū 肥後古流 (The word Higo refers to present-day Kumamoto Prefecture; koryū literally means "old school"). This is one of the schools of tea traditionally followed by members of the old Higo domain, and is considered to be faithful to Sen Rikyū's tea style; that is, it is tea of the "old school." The school has been led by three families, and therefore is divided into the following three branches:
  • Furuichi-ryū 古市流
  • Kobori-ryū 小堀流
  • Kayano-ryū 萱野流
• Hisada-ryū 久田流
• Hosokawasansai-ryū 細川三斎流
• Horinouchi-ryū 堀内流
• Kogetsuenshū-ryū 壺月遠州流
• Matsuo-ryū 松尾流 (founder: Matsuo Sōji, great grandson of a close disciple of Sen Sōtan who had the same name, Matsuo Sōji). The founder of the Matsuo school hailed from Kyoto and learned tea under the 6th Omotesenke iemoto, Kakukakusai. He later settled in Nagoya, where the Matsuo school is centered. A number of the successive Matsuo-ryū iemoto in history have apprenticed under the 'reigning' Omotesenke iemoto.
• Mitani-ryū 三谷流
• Miyabi-ryū 雅流　
• Nara-ryū 奈良流
• Oribe-ryū 織部流 (founder: Furuta Shigenari ). According to the Japanese tea historian Tsutsui Hiroichi, after the death of Sen no Rikyū, his chadō follower Furuta Oribe succeeded him as the most influential tea master in the land. Oribe was chadō officer for the second Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, and had a number of notable chadō disciples, foremost of whom was Kobori Enshū. For political reasons, Oribe was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), and consequently his family did not become an official tea-teaching family. Through the succeeding generations, the family head held the position of karō (intendant) to the daimyō headquartered at Oka Castle in present-day Oita Prefecture, Kyūshū. With the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, and the family's consequent loss of its hereditary position, the 14th-generation family head, Furuta Sōkan, went to the new capital, Tokyo, to attempt to reestablish the Oribe school of tea. Today, Kyūshū and especially Oita have the highest concentration of followers of this school.
• Rikyū-ryū 利休流
• Sakai-ryū 堺流
• Sekishū-ryū 石州流 The school developed by the daimyō Katagiri Sadamasa (a.k.a. Katagiri Sekishū) (1605–73), nephew of Katagiri Katsumoto and second-generation lord of the Koizumi Domain. Sekishū was chanoyu teacher to the fourth Tokugawa shōgun, Tokugawa Ietsuna, and his chanoyu style therefore became popular among the feudal ruling class of Japan at the time. The Sekishū-ryū school of chanoyu was passed forward by his direct descendants, and also through his talented chanoyu followers who became known as the founders of branches （派, "-ha") of the Sekishū school.
  • Sekishū-ryū Chinshin-ha 石州流鎮信派 (see Chinshin-ryū above)
  • Sekishū-ryū Fumai-ha 石州流不昧派 (founder: the daimyō Matsudaira Harusato, a.k.a. Matsudaira Fumai ).
  • Sekishū-ryū Ikei-ha 石州流怡渓派 (founder: the Rinzai Zen sect priest Ikei Sōetsu, founder of the Kōgen'in sub-temple at Tōkaiji temple in Tokyo). He studied chanoyu under Katagiri Sekishū. His chanoyu pupil, Isa Kōtaku (1684–1745), whose family was in charge of the Tokugawa government's tea houses, founded the Sekishū-ryū Isa-ha 石州流伊佐派. Furthermore, the Ikei-ha chanoyu style that spread among people in Tokyo was referred to as Edo Ikei, and that which spread among people in the Echigo (present-day Niigata Prefecture) region was referred to as Echigo Ikei.
  • Sekishū-ryū Ōguchi-ha 石州流大口派
  • Sekishū-ryū Shimizu-ha 石州流清水派
  • Sekishū-ryū Sōgen-ha 石州流宗源派　(founder: Fujibayashi Sōgen 藤林宗源, chief retainer of the daimyō Katagiri Sekishū).
  • Sekishū-ryū Nomura-ha 石州流野村派
• Sōhen-ryū 宗偏流 (founder: Yamada Sōhen, one of the four close disciples of Sen Sōtan)
• Sōwa-ryū 宗和流 (founder: Kanamori Sōwa )
• Uedasōko-ryū 上田宗箇流
• Uraku-ryū 有楽流 (founder: Oda Nagamasu )
• Yabunouchi-ryū 薮内流 (founder: Yabunouchi Kenchū Jōchi, who, like Sen Rikyū, learned chanoyu from Takeno Jōō)
• Yōken-ryū 庸軒流 (founder: Fujimura Yōken, one of the four close disciples of Sen Sōtan)

Fujimura Yoken died in 1699.