Are there colors that remind you of a childhood? I have a few and one of them is Azuki bean color. When I was growing up in Japan, my grandmother would make trays full of "Ohagi sweets" which are homemade mochi (pounded rice) covered in Azuki (sweetened read beans). Both mochi and azuki had so much textures because it was truly homemade. My grandmother would spend hours making these sweets for the family who gathered every year to honor the ancestors during the special week in August. I actually don't really remember a lot about the part of honoring the ancestors but I sure remember vividly how much I LOVED her Ohagi.
Recently we started carrying Azuki ink color from kyo no oto collection. The moment I put the ink on the paper, I was so moved by the subtlety of the color. It's not dark red. It's not purple. It's not brown. It IS Azuki color... Exactly the way I remember it from my grandmother's sweets. When I write with this ink, I can taste the thick sweet red beans and chaos and loud noise of so many cousins playing in the grandma's house. it's so visceral.
I am so grateful that I can share this ink with you. I am sure that your memory that gets triggered by this color will be different from mine... but I sure hope that it is a sweet one:)
