Fuyuko Kobori was born to Yuko and Soen Kobori, the 16th Iemoto, in Tokyo in 1985. From the age of six, she learned the art of tea ceremony from her father. Fuyuko earned her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Economics, School of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University. She then dedicated herself to the Kobori Enshu school office as an assistant to the Iemoto and a lecturer at the Shorai-kai study group. In May 2019, the Kobori family gave Fuyuko the title Iemoto-shi (“Successor to the Iemoto”), announcing her future succession as the next Iemoto.
Fuyuko is active in a wide range of traditional and contemporary tea-related events. She often collaborates with artists, musicians and butoh dancers, organizing tea ceremonies at contemporary art exhibitions and performances abroad.
As the first female Iemoto of the Kobori Enshu School and the first Iemoto with a foreign spouse, she leads a group of nearly 1,000 students nationwide, as a figurehead for women’s leadership in Japanese culture. Fuyuko is not only responsible for passing on her family’s culture to the next generation, but she is also breaking into a role that has been served only by men as heads of their Iemoto households. She plans to pursue research on women and traditional culture as her life’s work and is the proud mother of two sons, Masanobu and Masanao.
