The present invention aims to provide an ink which has a sufficiently
large area factor even in a small ink droplet quantity and can obtain
images having a high image density, and further has a superior storage
stability. According to the present invention, a cyan ink is provided
which is used in an ink set having four kinds of aqueous inks consisting
of a cyan ink, a magenta ink, a yellow ink and a black ink in which each
ink comprises at least water, a water-insoluble coloring material, and a
plurality of water-soluble organic solvents having a good medium or good
mediums for the water-insoluble coloring material and a poor medium or
poor mediums for the water-insoluble coloring material, wherein, the
ratio B.sub.1/A.sub.1 is from 0.5 or more to 3.0 or less, where A.sub.1
denotes the total content (mass %) of the good medium based on the total
mass of the cyan ink and B.sub.1 denotes the total content (mass %) of
the poor medium based on the total mass of the cyan ink, and a
water-soluble organic solvent which shows the maximum Ka value among the
respective Ka values of the plurality of water-soluble organic solvents
as determined by the Bristow method is the poor medium.