Sancha-j�ro was the name of a class of women which sprang up when a raid was made on the jigoku (“Hell women�) of Yedo and the furo-ya (bath-house) women were brought into the Yoshiwara in the 5th year of Kwambun (1665). The derivation of the word Sancha is very curious, and its explanation lies in a phonetically evolved pun. Sancha was the old time word for powdered tea, nowadays known as matcha or hikicha. In ancient times ordinary leaf tea was infused by placing it in a bag, and shaking this bag about in boiling water until the liquor was extracted. In the Japanese the verb “to shake� is furū, but this word is also used (especially by courtesans) to mean—“to repel� or “manifest dislike to� a guest. Ground tea (Sancha)—on the contrary—was not placed in a bag, but put right into the water, and therefore it required no shaking. The negative form of the word furū is furazu, and furazu has the sense not only of “not to shake� but “not to repel.� In the D�b�-Goyen it is stated that many of the better class courtesans were proud as peacocks, and in the zenith of their prosperity they would at times display marked antipathy to some of their guests, going so far as to repel (furū) the visitor altogether. The newly arrived courtesans who had been brought into the Yoshiwara from all parts of Yedo City were quite tractable and docile and did not attempt to rebuff (furazu) would-be guests and hence the name Sancha-j�ro (“Ground-tea harlots�). The fee of the Sancha-j�ro was at first 1 Bu (gold) (about Yen 2.50). This class of women became very popular in course of time, and by the era of An-yei (1772–1780) and Temmei (1781–1788) this popularity had become so marked that the number and value of Tayū and K�shi began to decrease. By the end of H�reki (1763) the last-named classes disappeared, and as soon as they ceased to exist the Sancha-j�ro succeeded in monopolizing the whole field. About that time, however, there arose a superior class called the Yobi-dashi, and these again were divided into two grades, distinguished in the Yoshiwara Saiken (list of prostitutes) of the period by the marks
and
respectively. Those marked
corresponded in all respects to the tayū. Their age-dai for 24 hours was 1 ry� 1 bu (about Yen 12.50) while those bearing the sign
were similar to the K�shi-j�ro, their age-dai for a day and a night being 1 ry� (about 10.00 Yen).
