Kobaien

An ink house in old Naramachi since 1577

Kobaien (古梅園, Kōbaien) in Tsubaicho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, is a maker of sumi ink sticks founded in 1577, and 25 of its buildings, from the street-front shop and family house to the ink workshops behind them, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 1998/01/16. Shop, home and workplace still share one plot in a corner of the old Naramachi merchant quarter, and ink is still made here every winter.

The company's own history credits the founder, Matsui Dōchin, who moved to Nara from Tōchi in Yamato Province and began making ink. Finding the methods of his day crude, he worked through old manuals such as the Engi-era rules of the court library's ink makers and the ink formula of the Li family, and was rewarded with the honorary court title Tosa no Jō. His successor Dōkei had an old plum tree in a corner of his garden that visiting poets and calligraphers never failed to praise, and the house took its name from it: Kobaien, "the garden of the old plum".

From shogunal orders to the Imperial Household

The third head, Dōju, was stationed in Edo to supply the shogunate and the mansions of the daimyo. The sixth, Gentai, travelled to Nagasaki in 1739 with shogunal permission and exchanged techniques with Qing ink masters, among them Cheng Danmu. The safflower ink (kōkaboku) he began was perfected by his son Geni, the seventh head, and the two left books on ink including the Kobaien Bokufu, a catalogue of the house's ink designs. The Nara ink makers' association says that from then on "ink" and "Kobaien" became almost the same word.

The tenth head, Genchō, gave up his court title at the Meiji Restoration and became a purveyor to the Imperial Household Ministry. The eleventh, Genjun, served as honorary mayor of Nara and turned the business into a company in 1915. Today Kobaien is run by the sixteenth head, Matsui Akiko. Most of the registered buildings date from the Taishō era (1912 to 1925), so the plot shows the house and works much as they stood when Kobaien became a company.

How the ink is made, building by building

Kobaien makes soot ink from burned plant oil. Pure vegetable oil goes into earthenware dishes, rush wicks are lit under clay covers, and the soot that collects inside is scraped off; the covers are turned every 20 minutes so the soot settles evenly. Animal glue is warmed slowly in copper pots called tanpo, in water held at 70 degrees, and the soot and glue are kneaded together at a ratio of 100 to 60 with a little fragrance.

The kneaded ink is pressed into carved pear-wood moulds. Out of the mould, each stick is buried in damp wood ash, then moved day by day into drier ash, a stage that takes a week for small sticks and 30 to 40 days for large ones. The sticks are then bound in rice straw and hung from the ceiling to dry for 1 to 6 months, washed, warmed over charcoal, burnished with a clam shell and finished with gold or silver paint. Ink is made only in the cool months, from mid-October to the end of April.

The registered buildings are named for those steps. The copper pot house holds the brick hearths for melting glue; the saikuba workshop is where the paste was weighed and moulded; the north and west ash-changing houses dried the sticks in ash; the ash store and straw-binding room dried the ash and tied the sticks in straw; the polishing workshop, finishing workshop and product storehouse handled the last stages. The Inui Storehouse in the northwest corner still keeps the house's wooden moulds.

Other buildings served the craftsmen themselves: a dining room and changing room, a bathhouse with five tubs, a former live-in staff wing now used as a changing room, a kitchen where the ink makers once ate, and a kettle house with a stone-lined well.

Reading the plot

The shop stands on the street with its signboard and black plastered walls. The office runs on to the south under the same eaves, and at the northeast corner a roofed earthen wall links the shop to the main house. Behind the shop is the main house, built in the omoteya style with the living quarters set back behind the shop, and across a courtyard stands the detached parlor. Three storehouses for household goods, the east, middle and west inner storehouses, sit around the family quarters.

The north side of the plot meets a narrow lane, where plastered walls, gable ends and storehouse eaves line up along the alley. The ink workshops fill the western half, entered past the small ink-making explanation room near the centre. Along the south side, the long finishing workshop marks the edge of the property.

The 25 registered buildings

All 25 were registered on 1998/01/16 under numbers 29-0005 to 29-0029, and all belong to Kobaien Co., Ltd. By the Agency for Cultural Affairs' dating, the Inui Storehouse is from the Meiji era, 16 buildings including the shop and main house are Taishō, and 8, among them the explanation room and saikuba workshop, are early Shōwa. The detached parlor was registered as a building "not easily reproduced"; the other 24 as buildings that "contribute to the historic landscape".

Visiting and the hand-gripped ink experience

The shop is open for business and sells the house's ink. Kobaien gives its hours as Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and notes that hours vary with the season; calling ahead on 0742-23-2965 is wise.

The main house, storehouses and workshops are a private home and a working factory, so the grounds are not open to walk in. From outside you can see the shop, office and corner wall on the street, and the walls and storehouses along the lane to the north. Factory visits are by reservation, and during the ink-making season from November to the end of April visitors can try nigiri-zumi, squeezing a lump of freshly kneaded ink in the hand to shape it. The experience costs from 4,000 yen, and the stick is posted to you once it has dried. Ask about photography when you book.

Getting there

Kobaien is about 6 minutes on foot from Kintetsu Nara Station; the ink makers' association describes the route as south along Konishi-dori from Exit 4, 7 to 8 minutes. From JR Nara Station it is about 10 minutes east along Sanjo-dori. Kobaien's own directions mention no parking, so arriving by train and on foot is simplest.