Diamine Chocolate Brown
Ink Review #15
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color/properties:
Diamine Chocolate Brown is a medium brown that offers light shading with a soft gradient between its varying tones, giving this ink a slightly velvet appearance. Depending on the pen, Chocolate Brown can have a more solid appearance, and you may not get any shading at all.
I was amused when both the swatch and the droplets came out with a foggy black sheen. The droplets especially formed a thick, black crust. I don’t expect that this would ever show up in normal writing circumstances. You could try with a wetter pen, but this ink is already incredibly wet, and there’s a good chance that it will bleed through the paper before it sheens.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
Chocolate Brown behaved well. I didn’t experience any feathering or bleeding on any of the test papers. Unfortunately, the dry times were well below average. The poor dry times were observable on every page and with every nib, but they were never consistent. If I had to, I would say the dry times were the best on Rhodia, but I wouldn’t trust Chocolate Brown if you need it to dry quickly. Unfortunately, the water resistance isn’t great: it’s cloudy and difficult to read, but it’s better than nothing.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
I didn’t experience any hard starts, skips, or stops during my tests with Chocolate Brown, but I’m not surprised. Chocolate Brown is very wet. It’s almost too wet. This was consistent across all of the test nibs, and the lubrication was more than adequate enough to provide a slick writing experience. Cleaning the nibs and pen was easy. The water ran clear with a standard flush
Value/cost per ml:
At the time of writing Diamine Chocolate Brown sells for $17 for an 80ml bottle from most US retailers, making this ink $0.21 per ml.
The bottle/packaging:
Diamine Chocolate Brown comes in the standard Diamine bottle with a gold cap and brown label that generally represents the color inside. The glass could be crisper, but the bottle is inoffensive and unassuming, if not slightly akin to artistic supplies. I think it does well to capture Diamine as the long-standing and historic ink-maker they are. Functionally, the bottle is fine. It’s wide at the bottom, making it stable for filling. The opening isn’t the widest though and I do find it more comfortable to syringe-fill the pen rather than from the bottle.
Score: 61/70
Price per ml: 8.5/10
Performance in a pen: 10/10
Performance on paper: 10/10
Color saturation: 8/10
Sheening: 1/10
Shading: 3/10
Dry time: 4.5/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 9/10
Bottle form: 2/5
Bottle function: 3/5
*Only 70 of the 100 available points are required for an outstanding score.My personal thoughts...
This one’s not bad. It’s a nice deep brown (very reminiscent of chocolate pudding, I think) that works well as both an Autumn and Winter brown. I have to admit though that I was shocked that it didn’t bleed or feather through any of the papers because it’s such a wet ink. It instantly flooded my Kakimori dip pen when I was doing swatches, and I just didn’t think it would perform all that well. The dry times really suffered because of it, but if you don’t mind that, it’s a very pleasant ink to write with.
Written in a Profolio Oasis notebook with a Lamy Lx “Marron” <F>
More images/info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook