Welcome

  • Soen KoboriThe 16th IEMOTO KOBORI-ENSHU-RYU
  • The 16th IEMOTO KOBORI-ENSHU-RYU / Soen Kobori
  • Thank you for taking a look at the Kobori-Enshu-ryu Website.
    In our increasingly busy lives, we must remember to create small moments of leisure which help us to relax and expand our minds.
    There are many sects in the tea ceremony, each of which has its own tradition and a meaning of existence. The style of Kobori Enshu, the founder of Kobori-Enshu-ryu (school), is said to be the origin of kirei sabi (beautified sabi) and the artistic tea, and aimed at aesthetic improvement of Rikyu’s style that was transmitted through Oribe, rather than the style of Sotan who was initiated into the mysteries of wabi. As for our school, I would like to harmonize artistic tea with modern sensibilities without losing dignity and elegance.
    If you want to learn the tea ceremony of our school, I hope you will walk along this path as part of your life with cha no kokoro (a heart or mind of the Tea).     [Biography]
    Born in 1946. Graduated from the College of Humanities and Sciences at Nihon University. After the passing away of Sotsu who was the fifteenth master of the school, he became the head of the Kobori-Enshu-ryu offertory. The ceremonies are held in Shinto shrines like Kashima Jingu (Ibaraki Prefecture) and Katori Jingu (Chiba Prefecture) in Japan. In addition, with the support of the Japan Foundation, many tea gathering ceremonies are held overseas including in China, Uzbekistan and Jordan.
  • Koichi ObataChairman of the KOBORI-ENSHU-RYU SHORAI-KAI
  • Chairman of the KOBORI-ENSHU-RYU SHORAI-KAI / Koichi Obata
  • Welcome to the website of the Kobori-Enshu-ryu Shorai-kai.
    The Kobori-Enshu-ryu tea school was founded by Kobori Enshu who was active as a feudal lord of the Tokugawa shogunate as well as a landscape designer, architect, poet and calligrapher with a unique aesthetic eye for tea utensils. The school has taught buke-cha, a tea ceremony for the samurai for more than four hundred years. It was rebuilt by the beauty of the two cultures of the samurai and the imperial dynasty flowing through the great masters Rikyu and Furuta Oribe. The present iemoto (the head of the school) is the sixteenth generation.
    The Shorai-kai is an affiliated organization of the school sponsoring the activities of the iemoto who is dedicated to the succession of the style, working on the spreading of tea ceremony and the enjoyment of the buke-cha ceremony together.
    Tea ceremony is one of the refined pastimes to entertain guests; it is only in Japan that such dignified, graceful, manners are tailored for serving a cup of tea to the guest. So many Japanese aesthetic and spiritual traditions—calligraphy, poetry, floral art, incense, crafts, architecture, pottery—are condensed in the essence of our style.
    The tea ceremony is the art of expressing such beauty in the mind and the body.
    Why not express yourself through this beauty and experience omotenashi (the entertaining of the guests in a spirit of hospitality)?
    This website will lead to further understanding of our school, if it is received as an invitation to experience tea ceremony in our school, it will be my great happiness.