Akyou Seienboku inkstick ( Bluish black, Donkey glue 阿膠青煙墨 )

Akyou Seienboku spells out its own materials, character by character: A (阿), rare, Kyou (膠), glue, Sei (青), bluish, En (煙), smoke, Boku (墨), ink.

The glue itself — Akyou, sometimes called Genkyou — is the product of years of development at Kobaien, a rare binder that, paired with oil smoke, produces a bluish black of real, quiet beauty.

It comes in two sizes, 3.0 at 26×89×16mm, 45g, and 5.0 at 33×153×16mm, 79g, so you can choose a compact stick for practice or a larger one for more ambitious pieces — worth noting that some natural variation in size and weight is normal from one stick to the next.

For anyone drawn to Kobaien's ongoing experiments in rare glues, this is a quietly technical, beautifully colored result of that research.