If you like to write or draw using ink, you can create your own ink at inkstand by kakimori in Tokyo, Japan.

Last year in Japan, my girlfriend wanted to spend her birthday doing something special – mixing her own ink colors to take home with her.

She found this small and quiet place where you can mix your own ink. The staff explained to us in English how to mix the colors and how to use the beautiful glass pen. The instructions were also written down (I think those were available in different languages) and then we had 40 minutes to create our own stunning (or weird) tone of color.

We had five small cups which we used to mix the ink. For each mixture, we chose up to three different colors to use with an optional slot for dilution. While taking notes on how many drops of each ink went into the mixture, we tried to come up with our own special color (there was also a cheat sheet with examples for mixtures).

While mixing, we tried out the ink directly, since the color would sometimes change when drying. For that, we got to use this beautiful glass pen which you could also buy in their store. Yes - they have a store nearby, kakimori, where you can buy pens and also make your own customized notebook. We also went there and bought a pen and made a notebook afterwards.

After the time was up, we wrote down the ratio of the mixture we wanted to keep (we could each choose one mixture), waited a bit and then got a bottle of our own ink. I think it took about 1 ½ hours to bottle our ink, so in that time, we visited their store. When receiving our little bottle with ink, we also got a code they saved in their system, which we could use to order a refill of our mixture if we needed more of our ink.

All in all a nice and relaxing experience.

Links

• inkstand by kakimori: https://inkstand.jp/english
• kakimori: https://kakimori.com/english/service