Shirojiro Chaya Shirojiro Chaya was a wealthy merchant in the Azuchi-Momoyama/Edo period. He was head of the Chaya merchant house known for overseas trading, as a purveyor of goods for the shogun, and a silk assayer and merchant. In each generation, the head of the Chaya family took on the name Shirojiro; the founder of the house supplied Ieyasu Tokugawa's residence in Kyoto. Shirojiro Chaya built a mountain retreat on a hill called Sayama along the Kitashirakawa River and developed an interest in the fine arts such as tea ceremony, which he studied under Senno Rikyu. The name "Sayama" of this hill originates with Shirojiro Chaya. It is said that he was the inventor of "chayazome," the technique used to die the light summer kimonos worn by women in the palace,that was popular from the Kanei to the Tenna eras. BACK