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 B1 / A1 is from 0.5 or more to 3.0 or less, where A1 denotes the total content (
mass %) of the good medium based on the total
mass of the cyan ink and B1 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.