Tamagawa Enshu-ryu School (A school of Tea and Green Tea Ceremony) (玉川遠州流)
The Tamagawa (also known as Gyokusen) Enshu-ryu school is a school of tea and green tea ceremony. It is also referred to as the Tamagawa school.
History
Zansai OMORI, the first-generation head of the school, whose home town was Kyoto, preferably practiced kenjutsu (the art of swordsmanship) when young; he subsequently became the disciple of Enshu KOBORI. His go (a pseudonym) 'Tamagawa' was received by Emperor Reigen on the presentation of 'take niju giri hana ire' (bamboo vase). With Joshin, the second tea master, serving as a sado (a person in charge of the tea ceremony) for Kaninnomiya (one of the Imperial families), the relationship with court nobles had deepened since then, but after the death of the third head, Yuri, the premature death of the following heir Reiza caused the extinction of the Omori family line.
After the absence of the head of the school for 30 years, Masayuki TACHIBANA revived the Omori family to become the fourth head, Soshin, under instructions of Imperial Prince Kaninnomiya Haruhito, who had been certified as full proficiency from the third head, Yuri. Ordained as Jugoinoge (Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade), Masayuki TACHIBANA, who was a keishi (household superintendent) of the Kazanin family, was instructed by Shuetsu NANBU, a vassal of Imperial Prince Haruhito. At the edge of the earlier connections that Kodo KAIJOIN of Saisho-ji Temple who was a disciple of the second head, Joshin, spread tea ceremony in Akita, Soshin visited Akita four times to involve in the promotion and the school has known over the Tohoku region, especially in Akita since then.
The Meiji Restoration saw Soryu, the fifth-generation head, move to Tokyo and serve as a sado for Arisugawanomiya. In 1886, Soryu called his way of tea ceremony as Tamagawa Enshu school and completed the Tamagawa Enshu school of sencha-ho (green tea method) based on the method handed from their ancestors. Mineo, the sixth head of the school, was a daughter of the fifth head, Soryu, and an English teacher of a girls' high school in Kyoto; however, she promoted the Tamagawa Enshu school of tea ceremony in her late years. Succeeding to the iemoto (the head family of a school) after Mineo, the sixth, the husband of Masako NAKANO (also known as Ryuan OMORI), a Mineo's disciple, became the seventh head, Somu.