She was born in 1778 as a daughter of a Naniwa-ya, a public teahouse within the precincts of Sensoji temple. In Japan there is a word called kanban-musume(看板娘) who is beautiful girl and attracts customers. Since around 1750, some of the tea houses in Edo had them and got popularity.
Okita also became the kanban-musume for Naniwa-ya. And Utamaro drew her woodblock print for the first time in 1793 when she was 16 years old. Most of the girls didn’t wait on the customers but she did as the pictures show her appearance of bringing the green tea.
She was so charming and did good service. In no time, lots of people came to Naniwa-ya and Sensoji temple to see her. Occationally, the crowd disturbed their business and she sprinkled to drive them away. But some stood on a wooden bucket and tried to look her.
Utamaro continued to paint Okita and left the most works about her through his artist life.