A tea master of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, and the founder of the three Sen houses of tea today. He brought to completion the “wabi-cha”, a style pared to the utmost simplicity. Born into a merchant family in Sakai, Osaka, he entered the way of tea early and was known as a tea master by about the age of twenty-three. He was then engaged as tea master by Nobunaga Oda, and later served Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Holding tea gatherings at the imperial palace and the great Kitano tea gathering with Hideyoshi, he became the foremost figure in the way of tea; but he incurred Hideyoshi’s anger and was ordered to take his own life, at the age of seventy.