Tea master of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. He was the first disciple of Shaowo Takeno. A native of Sakai, Izuminokuni (Osaka Prefecture). His shop name was Sumiya, and he was a draper for the imperial court. He studied the tea ceremony under Shao-o for 20 years, and was taught the importance of the small pot, but Yamakami Soji, a great disciple of Rikyu, criticized him harshly, saying that he had no eye for tools, was not good at the tea ceremony, and was a poor tea master. At Rikyu’s request, he gave him the ancient method of daiko.
The Senke family passed this down to him and called it sumiya denju. He possessed a Shigaraki water jar with an ogre barrel as a speciality tool.
It is said that he died on November 10, 1576 (Tensho 4), but this is not clear. He changed his family name to Matsuo during the reign of Soji III and called himself Matsuo-ryu (the Matsuo school of tea ceremony). According to this, Genya Tsuji was the founder of the Matsuo school.
