In the last half of the Edo period, outstanding tea devotees appeared from the daimyo class. Matsudaira Fumai and Ii Naosuke are representative of these.
Matsudaira Fumai was the lord Matsue castle in Izumo. His name was Harusato and his Buddhist name was Bioan. He revolutionized the administrative system of the Matsue clan which was in financial difficulties and put it back on its feet. With the money that he had to spare he created a large collection of tea utensils. In his younger years he was critical of chonoyu. In order to go beyond the existing chanoyu and clear the way for a new one Fumai went ahead with an independent study of chanoyu utensils. The result of this was 'Kokon Meibutsu Ruiju' (Classified Collection of Famous Utensils of Ancient and Modern Times) in 18 volumes. In this work the shape and size of meibutsu are described in detail and they are divided into the categories of omeibutsu (lit. 'great famous utensils'), and chukomeibutsu ('rediscovered famous utensils'). With this study of meibutsu as a background, Fumai made a collection of tea utensils totalling about 800 as recorded in the Unshu Kuracho. These utensils are today still known as Unshu Meibutsu and are highly prized. This chanoyu of Fumai had a great influence on the tea devotees of the world of finance in the modern age.
Ii Naosuke was a daimyo with land producing 300,000 goku (one koku is about 180 litres) of rice in Hikone. He is famous as the chief minister who led the opening of Japan to the outside world. Naosuke moved at a single stroke from the obscurity of his youth to being the head of the Ii family and then the centre of the shogunate government. He was consistently passionate about chanoyu from his youth and in the midst of a busy life as a statesman never forgot to devote his spare moments to chanoyu. In Ansei 4 (1857) he completed the compilation of chanoyu studies 'Chanoyu Ichie Shu' (Collection on the Oneness of Chanoyu). In the Ichie Shu the desirable mental attitude for a chakai tea gathering is spoken of, which is ichigo ichie. Ichigo ichie means once in a lifetime. Naosuke teaches us that we should attend the chakai with the earnestness of our knowledge that this chakai can never be experienced again. Also after the chakai we should drink tea alone so that dokuza kannen (solitary contemplation) becomes a part of chanoyu. This also appears in 'Chanoyu Ichie Shu'. The distinctive feature of Naosuke's chanoyu is its earnest pursuit of this mental attitude.