Sakai no shu is the collective name for the townsman practitioners of Momoyama-period Sakai, centring on the three great masters — Sen Soeki (Rikyu), Imai Sokyu, and Tsuda Sogyu — among whom Sakai became the centre of wabi tea.
Why Sakai
Warring-states Sakai was a self-governing merchant city run by an assembly of wealthy traders, and through foreign trade and economic power it ranked with Kyoto and Nara among the largest cities in Japan. That wealth is the background against which tea flourished as a townsman culture.
Legacy
The interior orientation the Sakai masters worked out is transmitted through the three Sen houses to the present. Rikyu's wabi tea did not emerge in isolation: it was formed within a merchant city's culture, which is part of why it treats the judgement of the host, rather than inherited rank, as the source of value.
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