Database: Imai Sokyū
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In a world ruled by feudal leaders, Imai Sokyū was one of the prominent figures of his time as a wealthy arms dealer, a tea master, and a skilled politician. During his youth, he studied the tea ceremony in Sakai, under the guidance of Takeno Joo (1502-1555) who was known for his development of the aesthetic philosophy centered on the concept of wabi (beauty in simplicity), and whose daughter later married Sokyū.
Imai Sokyū became rich by producing firearm ammunition all while being by Oda Nobunaga's side, mainly as a compulsive tea utensil collector. This position gave him the reputation of a double-faced man, both as a "merchant of death" and a theoretician of the peaceful tea ceremony. Then he became the grand tea master of Hideyoshi and was one of the three great tea masters of his time, along with Sen no Rikyu and Tsuda Sokyū.
He played a crucial role in popularizing the "hot water for tea" to be more than just a pastime of the middle classes of Sakai, Kyoto and Nara, but also made it popular among the powerful feudal lords of the country, starting with the unifiers Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi who performed it and even turned it into a political tool.