In August 2018, the Taccia Pen Company released their ink line and currently consists of 13 colors. These inks are manufactured in Japan by the Nakabayashi Co., Ltd. At the 2018 San Francisco Pen Show, Taccia brought the full line and had some bottles for sale. A lot of the show attendees definitely checked them out, HOTP crew included.
For full disclosure purposes, we purchased the Sora and Murasaki bottles with our own funds and the bottle of Ebi was graciously provided to us free of charge by Ms. Shu-Jen Lin of Taccia. Thank you Shu-Jen!
With that, the opinions in this review are always of our own and we were not compensated monetarily for our review.
Inky Swatches
Ebi on Rhodia Graph, 80 gsmMurasaki on Rhodia Graph, 80 gsmSora on Rhodia Graph, 80 gsm
Inky Dispositions
Katherine: I found these inks very well behaved and pretty. I particularly love Ebi, though I thought ebi means shrimp… and this seems like an awfully maroon/purple leaning shrimp. Either way, shrimp are delicious and the ink is a beautiful purple-maroon-pink. The inks aren’t waterproof, but do have some water resistance, you have to do some repeated wiping (or maybe soaking?) to get them off paper. I haven’t tested this extensively, but I’d be comfortable using this on envelopes when it’s raining (unlike some inks that just waaaaash cleanly off).
Pam: I am a big fan of the Taccia inks. All three colors are well behaved and easy to clean. No real staining of the hands! I really appreciate the range of colors. My favorite was the Murasaki, the cool purple color. It’s closer to a purple with blue undertones. It is similar to the Colorverse Hayabusa which I greatly enjoyed previously. It does have more shading than the more saturated Hayabusa and doesn’t have the gold sheen. It’s such a well behaved ink and preformed well in all of my pens, although I would recommend at least a Japanese F nib to show off this ink’s color. Broader nibs will show off the shading better.
Franz: My favorite of the three inks in review is the Murasaki. The color is in between violet and lilac which provides a feeling of royalty. Or perhaps it’s just me.
To concur with the ladies above, these Taccia inks are great inks to use and very easy to clean out of pens. Their wetness is at a medium level and has great flow. Both the Ebi and Murasaki demonstrated high level of saturation even with a fine nib. As for the Sora, it maintained its low-to-medium saturation even with a triple broad nib. With the dip nib/flex writing, both the Ebi and Murasaki caused feathering on Rhodia 80 gsm and Tomoe River 52 gsm papers. The Sora did not feather at all.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to see this new ink brand perform so well. I do recommend these inks for every day use and with the 13 colors, I’m inclined to say that there’s at least one for you.
Writing Samples
Taccia Ebi Ink: Rhodia Graph No. 16, 80 gsm paperTaccia Ebi Ink: Tomoe River, Cream, 52 gsm paperTaccia Murasaki Ink: Rhodia Graph No. 16, 80 gsm paperTaccia Murasaki Ink: Tomoe River, Cream, 52 gsm paperTaccia Sora Ink: Rhodia Graph No. 16, 80 gsm paperTaccia Sora Ink: Tomoe River, Cream, 52 gsm paper
We are very thankful to have received a bottle of this Pacific Ocean Teal ink from the San Francisco Pen Show group for review. They have commissioned Robert Oster Signature Inks in Australia to create an exclusive ink for the 2018 San Francisco International Pen Show to commemorate their Fifth Anniversary. They wanted a nice teal that shades and Robert Oster delivered!
The Pacific Ocean Teal ink bottles will be on sale at the pen show happening this weekend, Friday August 24 until Sunday August 26. We are told that supplies are limited so act fast! They will be sold near the show’s registration desk in the foyer area of the Pullman SF Bay Hotel in Redwood City, California.
For more information and details of the San Francisco Pen Show, check their website at: www.sfpenshow.com.
Paper: Tomoe River, 52 gsm
Paper: Tomoe River Dot Grid, 68 gsm (Hippo Noto Notebook)
Inky Dispositions
Katherine: It’s pretty! 😀 I prefer it in drier nibs (as pictured below) where it’s lighter and shows more shading. In wet nibs it just looks black. Overall it seems well behaved, and maybe a touch on the wet side. And oddly hard to photograph!
Franz: Teal, this color is in the realm of my favorite color which is blue. I say that like nobody knows it. hehe.. Anyway, inks made by Robert Oster are always well-behaved and are a treat to write with. This Pacific Ocean Teal is no exception. I’ve used the ink in different pens and they all wrote well consistently. My writing samples shown below were made via a Pelikan M800 because of the full range of nibs but I actually used a medium nibbed Vanishing Point at work with this ink and it was great as well.
The color of this ink is very close to what you find when you do an internet search for teal and that’s pretty cool. This ink may be at the medium to high in wetness for me but the dry-time isn’t too long. Some folks look for sheen and it’s there but not too much. It does show up in broad nibs or in flex writing if people really want that. But what I really like with this ink? It’s the shading for sure. You can use an extra fine nib up to even a triple broad nib and the shading is there!
Overall, I really love this ink! I don’t have many teal inks because my taste in ink color seems to lean more towards the blue side but this color is a fantastic one. I hope to get a bottle (or two) for myself at the show.
Paper: Tomoe River, 52 gsm (Musubi Diary)
Paper: Leuchtturm 1917 Dotted B5, 80 gsm
Paper: Rhodia Graph No. 16, 80 gsm
Pam: I had my reservations when I heard that the SF anniversary ink would be “teal.” Not another blue ink! However, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s. definitely within the blue family. It has the warmth and clarity of color that I loved about Iroshizuku Tsuya-kusa. The color reminds of Pelikan Turquoise. Albeit, it’s lighter than Turquoise and capable of some shading. I didn’t detect sheen when I have been using it.
The ink is well behaved in my book, producing lines that are as expected. It may lean wet, but only by a smidge. It runs really well through EF and F nibs, which is greatly appreciated. I don’t see a loss in color or saturation unless I am using in a really dry nib like my architect.
Overall, I would recommend this ink. It’s a beautiful color, reminiscent of the ocean blue waters surround our Golden Gate. I can see it being very dynamic for a calligrapher or any that experiment with a dip nib. The shading would be pretty great with this ink. Yet, it’s still readable, pleasing to the eye and can be used on a regular basis for your flair of “blue” in the office.
Before anything else, a big shout out of appreciation to Pen Chalet, for sending us inks to review! Pen Chalet was generous and sent us the inks at no charge, but we promise the review below is unbiased and our own uninfluenced* opinions.
* Except maybe by the food coma that followed our dinner gathering
For those unfamiliar with the Colorverse brand, each set contains two bottles, a big one (65ml)and a small (15ml) one. For this review we’re taking a look at two sets: Able + Miss Baker, and Hayabusa + Hayabusa Glistening. Able + Miss Baker is part of Colorverse’s Season 4 offering, Trailblazer in Space. Hayabusa is a Tokyo 2018 Special Edition.
Packaging
Inky Dispositions
Franz: Here goes our first ink review! =) For a period of time now, I’ve been intrigued with the ink bottles of Colorverse. Their bottle shape is very unique as well as their decision to ship two different size bottles and different ink colors. I also really love their outer space themes.
In this review, I only got to test the Able and the Hayabusa (non Glistening). Oh by the way, I kept referring to it as Habuyasa. Good thing I spelled it right in my sample below. Anyway, back to the ink review please.
Able: Color- mossy green; Saturation- low; Shading- high; Wetness- dry; Dry time- fast; Overall thoughts- The green color is very nice to look at however it is too light. The italic writing is from a wet, medium size Pelikan M800 nib but it doesn’t look like it below.
Hayabusa: Color- violet (more of in between violet and purple); Saturation- high; Shading- low; Wetness- medium to high; Dry time- medium; Overall thoughts- I’m loving this color! I don’t have too many purple inks but this definitely hits it for me. The difference in Hayabusa’s lubrication is noticeably different against the Able.
Ms. Baker: As I stated earlier, I was not able to test this ink but I was able to compare ink swatches and the two ladies’ writing samples. I would describe the color a light hot pink. I only own 3 pink inks (Monteverde Kindness Pink, Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji, and Kosumosu) but they don’t match Ms. Baker at all.
I’m happy to have been able to try out inks from the Colorverse brand. I will look into getting more samples of their growing ink line up.
Colorverse Able on 52gsm Tomoe River paper in a Musubi diary notebook
Colorverse Hayabusa on 52gsm Tomoe River paper in a Musubi diary notebook
Katherine: First off, I think the Colorverse bottles and packaging are adorable. There are even little stickers! But, that Able label is misleading. It looks solidly grey, but as you can see in our swatches, is solidly green. Perhaps a muddy green, but definitely green.
Packaging aside, the inks are well behaved — flow well and wash out easily (I did splatter Able and Miss Baker on some clothing and my face before dinner over the weekend. It washed off easily and no one looked at me funny as I ate my fancy multicourse meal). My one gripe is that Able is really, really light in most nibs — even wetter ones like Pelikan nibs. The highlight of trying the three for me is that Hayabusa Glistening both sheens and shimmers — a purple ink with green sheen and gold shimmer, so much fun!
Overall, I really like Hayabusa (I’m a sucker for purple ink) and Miss Baker. I like the overall color of Able, but found it too light except when in a narrow wet nib (the FCI in my writing samples).
Paper: 52gsm Tomoe River in a Seven Seas Crossfield journal notebook
Pam: My favorite color of the three is Colorverse Hayabusa. It’s a fantastic purple color. It reminds me of the Montblanc Psychedelic Purple. There are subtle differences between the two; Hayabusa is a cooler purple (more blue undertones) where as Psychedelic Purple is a warmer purple (with more red undertones.) Both have a subtle gold sheen, although, the sheen on Hayabusa can appear more green in certain lights. I find Hayabusa to be a great purple ink that has great readability that behaves very well in pens. Hayabusa was easily the most saturated of the inks and performed extremely well in F and EF nibs. My architect nib is particularly dry so this saturated ink has more shading without losing it’s vibrancy.
Miss Baker was a pleasant surprise for me. As someone who passed on Sailor Peche and sakura-inspired pink hues for ink, Miss Baker was surprisingly pleasant to behold. I particularly liked it with the Sailor 21k F nib, which is the wettest of my three nibs. My bias towards saturation is obvious, but I can’t deny that Miss Baker is capable of some great shading. Unfortunately, I don’t see myself using Miss Baker often due to the softness of the color. I am not sure if I would find a page of Miss Baker to be highly readable, or if it’s a color that would capture my attention in the margins in a sea of black print.
I will admit that I was expecting Able to be a gray ink, so my disappointment on this particular color may overshadow any positive qualities that this ink may have. Able is NOT gray. It’s a dull green-gray (more green). It lacks vibrancy of a green like Montblanc Irish Green or even Bungubox Norwegian Wood or the interest of a green-variant like Ku-jaku or Bungbox Dandyism. Able is just a blah-green. If there is any gray in the ink, it just took away the vibrancy and readability of the ink. It’s the least saturated ink of the three and is a pale ghost of it’s already zombied-green self in my EF and dry architect nibs. If anything, I feel mislead by the packaging and disappointed by the color.
Overall, I found all the Colorverse inks to be wet in flow and really easy to clean out. I will definitely be adding some Colorverse inks to my collection in the near future. Thank you again Pen Chalet! My order will be in your queue soon!
Paper: Filofax notebook.
Paper: (insert here, wait for Pam)
Paper: (insert here). A comparison of different purples side by side. Lavender Purple is much redder.
Ink Circles and Comparisons
Paper: Rhodia 80g Dot Pad. Able is definitely not grey, but is a pretty unique light muddy green. Able is a bright pink, but not similar to anything we had on hand. Katherine suspects it might be close to J Herbin’s Bouquet D’ Antan.
Paper: Rhodia 80g Dot Pad. Hayabusa’s closest match is Waterman Tender Purple, they even have the same greenish sheen.
And for the shimmer fiends, here’s a close up of Hayabusa Glistening. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the sheen and shimmer to show in any writing samples.
We received these inks free of charge for the purposes of this review. We were not compensated monetarily for our review. Everything you’ve read here is our own opinions.
