Brown Ink Recipe – Easy Chemistry Project

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Brown Ink (Cody and Maureen, Flickr)
Brown Ink (Cody and Maureen, Flickr)

It’s very easy to make your own natural brown ink for writing, drawing, or crafts. Here is a brown ink recipe you can try.

Brown Ink Ingredients

  • 4 teaspoons loose tea or 4-5 teabags
  • 1 teaspoon gum arabic
  • 1/2 cup boiling water

Prepare the Brown Ink

  1. Pour the boiling water over the tea. Allow the tea to steep for about 15 minutes.
  2. Squeeze as much tea (tannin) as possible from the tea or teabags.
  3. Stir in the gum arabic.
  4. Strain the ink and allow it to cool before bottling it.

While the tannin in tea is particularly excellent for ink, you could use coffee grounds or nut shells. You can use herbal teas to obtain inks in other colors. Expect the color of the ink to change over time or after prolonged exposure to heat or sunlight.

Use Chemistry to Make Other Ink Colors

Apply a bit of chemistry to make other colors of inks. This video explains simple methods of making black, brown, blue, and red inks.