The novelty Nobunaga and Hideyoshi found so appealing in chanoyu is exemplified in the latter’s Golden Tea Room. One way to describe its effect, if the tearoom were a recent work, would be by applying Greenberg’s ‘kitsch’ label to it, in that its ‘faked sensations’ are immediately pleasing to the senses (5). Covering the surfaces in gold leaf encourages light to bounce off the walls and the red tatami mats and shoji ground it in full gaudiness – this visual stimulation is immediately apparent, and lets us know that it is the most important, and possibly the only aspect of the room that is worth noting. Although the room does not fully fit the Greenbergian definition of kitsch as it was not mass produced, it was portable, and in Hideyoshi making a point to be seen alongside it whenever and wherever possible, he lowered the tea room's exclusivity. In this, Hideyoshi was making up for the lack tradition, but in grounding the room largely in visual effect, he unearthed a conceptual black hole in chanoyu that had yet to be fully resolved (6).

Up until this point, one could participate in chanoyu if they could afford to do so (7). But, by the elite having open access to the ceremony the cultivation of a tradition was not properly airtight - it had to be made more allusive to secure itself as a worthy art.