翰墨留香 Han Mo Liu Xiang Artist Oil Soot Black Inkstick

I will admit I bought it because it was one of the few that came with such rich embellishments of paint design and a wooden box of this type. I am a child at heart.
But I trusted that the price would reflect its quality. “You get what you pay for.”
The ink stick in use takes a long while to soften (rubberise – the play of the soot itself with the water in the resin) but once past this the ink is a rich black good enough for painting and calligraphy. I would not recommend trying o make a lot of ink with this stick as it can be a little more laborious than you are used to if you are a long time user of traditional ink sticks.
For me, I will now shelve this and leave it for some years, maybe over a decade, and let it rot down a little before I use it again and I only do this because I feel it is worth it.
Most of my ink stocks are now all over 20 to 55 years old and the older they are the easier it is to make ink sith them. The danger of that is that using the least laboursome of them means they deplete very quickly. 🙂 And it is often nigh on impossible to find a replacement.
For me I have about 5 ink sticks I have used regularly and this has been one of them.
I would recommend its purchase but I have been informed by InkStone that it has a competitor in the same price range.