Who Was Oda Uraku? Rikyu's Disciple and the Tea Master Behind Jo-an
Oct 02, 2026
Oda Uraku was a warrior and tea master who studied with Sen no Rikyū. His best-known surviving work is Jo-an, a small tea room built in 1618 and now preserved as a National Treasure.
He was also Oda Nobunaga’s younger brother. His life connects two parts of Japanese tea history: the powerful rulers who supported tea in the sixteenth century, and the different warrior tea traditions that developed after them.
Oda Nagamasu, Uraku and Urakusai
Uraku (織田有楽, 1547–1621) was born Oda Nagamasu into the Oda family of Owari Province. Omotesenke identifies him as Nobunaga’s younger brother. Uraku and Urakusai are the names most closely associated with his later life as a tea master.
Learning tea from Rikyū
Omotesenke’s glossary states that Uraku learned chanoyu, Japanese tea practice, from Sen no Rikyū. He belonged to the wider circle of warrior students that included Gamō Ujisato, Takayama Ukon, Hosokawa Sansai and Furuta Oribe.
Was he one of the seven disciples?
Some sources include him; others do not. The Rikyū Shichitetsu are the traditional group of seven warrior disciples of Rikyū.
Omotesenke’s standard list names Furuta Oribe as the seventh member, but it also notes that some tea documents name Uraku instead. The difference belongs to the history of the list, not a simple yes-or-no judgement about whether Uraku studied with Rikyū.
Jo-an: the tea room he left behind
Jo-an (如庵) is the tea room most closely associated with Uraku. Omotesenke dates its construction to 1618, at Shōden-in within the Kennin-ji temple grounds in Kyoto.
It now stands at Urakuen in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture. The official Urakuen account explains that it was moved there in the twentieth century and identifies it as one of three surviving tea rooms designated National Treasures.
What makes the room distinctive?
Urakuen highlights the Uraku-mado window, angled walls and the arrangement around the central post. These details let us study Uraku’s taste in a surviving room, rather than relying only on descriptions of him.
Jo-an is not simply a copy of Rikyū’s Taian. Both belong to the history of small tea rooms, but Jo-an has its own proportions, windows and layout.
The Uraku tea tradition
Omotesenke identifies Uraku as the founder of Uraku-ryū, or the Uraku style. Its account of early Edo samurai tea places this tradition alongside the Sansai, Enshū, Sōwa and Sekishū styles.
Uraku lived until 1621, well into the Tokugawa period. He had learned from Rikyū in the sixteenth century, then helped carry that teaching into an age when different warrior households developed their own approaches to tea.
Our guide to daimyō tea explains this wider history. It is not one uniform school: the traditions took different forms.
Uraku, Oribe and Enshū
Uraku and Furuta Oribe both studied with Rikyū, but they are remembered for different things. Oribe is closely associated with deliberately distorted ceramics and bold experiments in design. Uraku is especially associated with his tea tradition and Jo-an.
Kobori Enshū belongs to the next generation. He became known for kirei-sabi, an approach combining restraint with elegance, as well as architecture and gardens.
Uraku’s place in that history is earlier. He carried Rikyū’s teaching from the political world of the sixteenth century into the emerging warrior tea traditions of the seventeenth. Jo-an gives that story a room we can still study.
Sources and further reading
- Omotesenke — Oda Uraku
- Omotesenke — Rikyū Shichitetsu and alternate membership
- Urakuen official site — Oda Uraku and Jo-an
- Urakuen official site — National Treasure tea room Jo-an
Header image: early Edo portrait of Oda Nagamasu (Urakusai), unknown artist, Shōden Eigen-in collection; public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons.
