Diamine Earl Grey: Ink Review

Diamine Earl Grey is certainly unique, even including how it was created. The fountain pen community on Reddit, /r/fountainpens, came together and voted for an ink color and name to be made by Diamine, and this was the winner! Read on to find out why this is a great grey ink!

Ink Review

Supplies Used:

• LAMY AL-star with medium steel nib (also EF and B nib)
• Rhodia No.16 dotpad, 80g white paper
• Tomoé River white paper
• Moleskine notebook

Smear Test (Dry Time):

• About 25 seconds– We were pleasantly surprised by how quickly this ink dried. It didn't feel that dry coming out of my nib, or as is flowed across the paper, so I was not expecting that.

Drip Test (Water Resistance):

• Low – Not much ink was left behind when it came in contact with water, so if you are looking for a water resistant ink this may not be the one for you.

Saturation:

• Medium – When writing with it in the pen, the line laid down really wasn't very saturated- it came out fairly light. However, when we did a swab test, this ink looked so saturated! We had the same experience once we switched to a broad nib. This is just another one of the unique properties of this ink, you can use a finer nib and have it look less saturated, or use a broader nib and/or swab and see how dark in color it can appear.

Ease of Cleaning:

• Easy – This ink was very easy to flush out of the pens we used.

Shading:

• Medium – While the shading wasn't super dramatic, you definitely see some on my down strokes, especially on the Tomoe River paper.

Flow:

• Medium – This ink flowed really nicely out of my nib, but it wasn't so wet that smearing was a concern.

Packaging and Aesthetics:

• Comes in a 80ml glass bottle, or a 30ml glass bottle

Inks Similar in Color:

Summary:

Like I said before, I was surprised by how much I liked this ink! It wasn't the typical grey ink, and I really enjoyed how well it flowed and the shading it achieved. I think it would be good for a number of settings including school, work, and personal writing. I may actually use it to write some letters this weekend!

You can find an 80 ml bottle of Diamine Earl Grey, a 30ml bottle, and a 2 ml sample on our website!