Shang Hai Premium Chinese Calligraphy / Drawing Ink Stick: Tie Zhai Weng

Overall, as a student and or as an artist on a budget, I found this stick to be excellent. Some things to be aware of. This stick grinds well and is able to create a fine and dark ink. However, it does take patience and a good amount of time even with small amounts of water. As patience is a huge part of calligraphy and Asian art, this should be a good experience, especially if one is a growing student. Also, the smell is a little stronger than I'm used too, but nothing bad. It has the aroma of old cut grass.Highly recommend!

Though it is black and grinds, it smells like soot. I realize that is where the ink comes from, but I wonder if maybe the glue/soot mixture wasn't mixed with charcoal or ? Typically the oil burned is from castor oil but perhaps they used petroleum? Or maybe these weren't cured right? Or? But I did find out I suppose why you would want to put some sort of perfume into the ink sticks. Unless you want to feel like you just got your ink from the inside of your fireplace, look elsewhere!

Great inkstick, it grinds very well/smooth, and produces a rich black ink. It's very fragrant and being that it's and oil soot ink it makes a good general purpose calligraphy and painting ink. Would not hesitate to use this ink on my good quality inkstones.

Never worked with an ink stick before and purchased it for a recent calligraphy workshop. It was great to work with and the color was great. Loved it.

I selected five stars because the Ink stick grinds very dark, very fast. Has a very nice aroma and is decently priced. I would recommend this Ink stick for anyone looking for a nice ,deep ,smooth, black ink with a gloss shine.

among the other beginner ink sticks out there this one produces a nice dark ink the fastest. I like my ink very dark and somewhat buttery, so around ten minutes this one does achieve such consistency.

Excelent quality ink. It has a nice smell and it is easy to grind.

Really nice. Just as same as which I bought in China. Easy to blend, nice color, with a good smell.