Toukaen — 桐 (tou, paulownia) 華 (ka, blossom) 煙 (en, smoke) — is a rare and limited inkstick made from paulownia oil, a material so difficult to work with that few makers still attempt it.
Pushed dark, it settles into a deep, elegant black; thinned, it opens into a reddish-purple black unlike anything drawn from more common oils.
Completed in 2023 after incorporating the latest refinements in Kobaien's craft, it wasn't released until late October 2024 — and each stick arrives with a paper noting its year of manufacture and a Kobaien seal of authenticity.
Paulownia oil dries almost as fast as it's poured, forming a skin the instant it touches air, which makes it nearly impossible to ignite by ordinary means — a property so useful for coating furniture that little pure oil is left over for ink.
Where a typical soot-collecting burn takes hours, coaxing paulownia oil to smoke demands more than four times the effort and hands, the flame trimmed low and tended constantly so it never quite catches.
The soot this produces, though, is exceptionally fine — and the dough made from it dries and stiffens so quickly that it can't simply be pressed into an ordinary mould; it must be kneaded without pause and worked in specially built moulds made for this oil alone.
The practice traces back to a pine shortage in Song-dynasty China, when ink makers first turned to vegetable and mineral oils as substitutes — paulownia among them, prized ever since by aristocrats and artists for the exceptionally fine particles it alone could produce.
One customer, working in black and white, praised the stick's wide tonal range as ideally suited to monochrome art.
Size: W:29.5mm L:113mm T:12.6. mm Wgt:46gram ( 94 gram including the box )
**This inkstick is a limited edition product, and the quantity is limited. There may be cases where Kobaien does not have any stock of this inkstick after you have placed your order, in which case we will cancel your order in its entirety. Please accept our apologies.
Color sample:
