Diamine Chocolate Brown
Ink Review #15
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The Color and Properties
Diamine Chocolate Brown is a medium brown. While it’s a mostly solid color (especially when writing in cursive), it offers light shading as a soft velvety gradient between its base color and a darker brown. The color can get particularly dark around the edges of letters.
The ink may also have a foggy black luster on some papers. It’s not quite a sheen, but you can easily see it in good lighting. The droplets (below) especially formed a thick, black crust. It’s not something that will always show up in normal writing, but it’s there, especially if you have a wetter pen.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Chromatography
Performance on Paper | Dry Times | Water Resistance
Despite being a wetter ink, Chocolate Brown behaved well. I didn’t experience any feathering or bleeding on any of the test papers. It should be fine with most fountain pen-friendly papers, but keep in mind that it could push some papers past their limits when paired with a wetter pen.
Rhodia
Leuchtturm1917
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. I’ve also come to learn that this ink has a tendency to smudge when handled, even when it’s been dry for some time.
The water resistance isn’t great either. Water exposure quickly causes the color to cloud. Some of the writing is retained, but it’s awfully faint and not the easiest to read.
More Pages
Performance in the Pen | Cleaning
This is where chocolate brown shines. 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 (some might even say too wet). It’s well lubricated and makes for an overall pleasant and extremely satisfying writing experience. If you like juicy inks, this is a fantastic option.
The cleaning process was also easy, and only took a single soak and flush cycle to clean out of the test nibs and pen without any visible color or residue remaining in the barrel.
Writing Samples
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white, 5mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Written on 68 gsm Tomoe River (white, 5mm ruling) with a fine nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with a medium nib.
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
Shimmer: None
My personal thoughts...
Over the years, I’ve grown quite an appreciation for Chocolate Brown. Sure, it was one of the first bottled inks I ever bought, so I always liked it, but as time goes by, I’ve come to realize just how special it really is. As a chocolate color, I find it very reminiscent of chocolate pudding – it’s a beautiful shade that, for me, works well as both an Autumn and Winter brown. It’s admittedly far from perfect, and I would hesitate to recommend this as daily brown ink for how overly wet it can be and how smudgy the dried ink can get, but it’s those same things that make the ink great. It’s enjoyable, and I can easily recommend it for that.
Wrtten on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a TWSBI ECO (medium nib).
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 Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 68 gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook