In the 16th century, Japan was at war.
The country was divided among rival warlords. Castles changed hands, armies marched across the countryside, and ambitious men fought to become the person who would finally unite Japan.
It was the age of the samurai.
And yet, in the middle of all this violence, something remarkably quiet was becoming a source of extraordinary influence.
Tea.
Not tea as we think of it today.
Tea as a ritual.
Tea as art.
Tea as a language of power.
And eventually, tea as a way of understanding life itself.
It was during this turbulent period that a young man named Sen no Rikyū was born in 1522 in Sakai, the prosperous merchant port south of present-day Osaka.
In the 16th century, Sakai was one of Japan’s most important centers of trade and culture. Wealthy merchants brought in goods and ideas from across Asia, and tea drinking had become an important part of sophisticated urban life.
Rikyū's family was involved in commerce, and his father was a warehouse owner. Rikyū was not born into the aristocracy. He was not a powerful samurai.
He came from the world of merchants.
And perhaps that makes what happened to him even more remarkable.
According to the Urasenke tradition, the young Rikyū studied tea from an early age. At nineteen, he became a student of Takeno Jōō, one of the important pioneers of the emerging wabi style of tea. He also studied Zen in Sakai, an influence that would become deeply important to his later approach to tea.
But Rikyū was entering a world in which tea had already become something much larger than a beverage.
Tea was power
Among Japan’s wealthy and powerful classes, tea gatherings could be extravagant affairs.
Imported Chinese ceramics were prized.
Famous tea utensils could possess enormous prestige.
To own a celebrated tea container could be a demonstration of wealth and status.
Tea gatherings brought together merchants, monks, warriors and political leaders.
And the men who controlled these gatherings could themselves become influential.
Then came Oda Nobunaga.
Nobunaga was one of the most formidable warlords of the Sengoku period and one of the first great figures in Japan’s eventual unification.
Rikyū eventually became associated with Nobunaga as a tea master.
This changed everything.
Tea was no longer merely a private artistic pursuit.
It was now taking place in the immediate orbit of political power.
Nobunaga understood that tea could strengthen relationships and reward loyalty. Famous tea utensils could be bestowed as extraordinary honors, and permission to conduct a tea gathering could itself be a privilege.
Rikyū had entered a dangerous world.
A world where a bowl of tea could carry political meaning.
Then Nobunaga died
In 1582, Oda Nobunaga was killed at Honnō-ji.
Japan’s political landscape changed almost overnight.
And another man rose to power:
Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Hideyoshi was a remarkable figure.
He had risen from humble origins to become one of the most powerful men in Japan.
And he knew Rikyū.
In fact, Hideyoshi himself had already participated in tea culture before becoming ruler.
After Nobunaga’s death, Hideyoshi appointed Rikyū as his personal tea master.
The relationship between the two men would become one of the most fascinating—and ultimately tragic—relationships in Japanese cultural history.
Rikyū was now standing beside the man who was effectively becoming master of Japan.
But Rikyū had a very different vision of what tea should be.
He believed that beauty did not require wealth.
That a simple bowl could be more meaningful than an expensive imported treasure.
That a tiny room could be more beautiful than a magnificent hall.
That a single flower could say more than a room full of decoration.
And slowly, Rikyū began transforming tea.
He was not simply making tea more elegant.
He was changing the definition of beauty itself.
And then he built a room so small that even a powerful lord had to bow to enter it.
What was Rikyū trying to achieve?
Why would he deliberately make a tea room smaller, darker and simpler?
And what happened when this philosophy encountered a ruler who loved gold?
The answer begins in Episode 2.