Monteverde Jade Noir
Ink Review #163
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
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Overview
The Color | Properties
Monteverde Jade Noir is a dark green with slight blue undertones. It shades with a soft cut when writing in both cursive and print, but there’s not a lot of tonal variation between the shaded and non-shaded areas. Instead, there’s a light red sheen that may appear around the edges of letters or around the edges of where the ink pools. The sheen is noticeable enough, but not so much that I would call this a sheening ink.
Ink droplets
Ink splat
Chromatography
Performance on Paper | Dry Times | Water Resistance
During my tests, I experienced a surprising amount of feathering in the Maruman Mnemosyne notebook, as well as some light bleedthrough, mostly with the broad and 1.1mm stub nibs, but even the medium nib showed some mild feathering around the tail ends of letters. While it was the worst on the Maruman paper, there was also some light feathering and bleeding on the Rhodia, Leuchtturm, and Tomoe River. There was the usual bleeding and feathering in the Kokuyo Campus notebook as well, and even in the ink droplets above, you can see some heavy feathering around the edges. This ink should still be okay with most pen and paper combinations, but pens with a wet flow will almost certainly push many papers past their limits. I recommend trying on a test page first.
Rhodia
Leuchtturm1917
Despite the saturation, the dry times were surprisingly good! On Rhodia, in particular, it never took longer than 15 seconds to dry. The other papers were a more average 20-25 seconds, but again, given the saturation, the dry times are better than expected. Still, with the slight sheen in mind, the ink may be prone to mild smudging from residual hand moisture even after it’s dried.
When exposed to water, Jade Noir quickly clouds over. There’s a lot of color loss, and it’s messy, but there are some shadows of the writing left over that are strong enough to be still legible.
More Pages
Performance in the Pen | Cleaning
Jade Noir has a medium-wet flow and is very well lubricated, making for a pleasantly smooth writing experience. Based on the higher saturation, I expected there to be some issues with the ink drying out too quickly in the nib, but I never encountered an issue. In fact, the ink was very well-behaved during my writing tests. I never experienced any hard starts, skips, stops, or drops in flow during extended writing.
The cleaning experience was also good. Once again, based on the ink’s higher saturation, I expected the ink would be more difficult to clean out, and it did take slightly more flushing than normal, but it still washed out easily enough, without any traces of color or residue left over. If you have a bulb syringe handy, cleaning won’t be noticeably harder than most other inks.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white, 6mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with a Sailor medium-fine nib.
Performance in a pen: 9/10
Performance on paper: 6/10
Color saturation: 8/10
Sheening: 4/10
Shading: 2/10
Dry time: 7.5/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 9/10
Shimmer: None
My Personal Thoughts…
I’ve been looking forward to this one! This is the Noir Collection’s green-black, and, while it’s not a wide deviation in tone from other similar dark greens, one thing is certain: this green is dark. In fact, it’s easily the darkest green I have here! That alone is something special, but it’s also moody and mysterious. There’s something about it that feels almost botanical to me. So much so that I keep referring to it as Botanical Noir by accident. Thematically, everything feels spot on. It’s perhaps a little more aggressive on some papers than I would like, but the overall performance has made this the most pleasant writing ink in Noir Collection so far. All in all, this is an easy ink to recommend, and one of the best inks in the set.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River Paper with a Maiora Ogiva Bertram’s Inkwell 40th Anniversary special edition (medium nib).
More images/info:
Bertram’s Inkwell was kind enough to loan me one of the 40th Anniversary pen blanks for this photo shoot — Thanks, Bert!
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Monteverde Jade Noir
Maiora Ogiva Bertram’s Inkwell 40th Anniversary special edition, medium nib
Sailor Pro Gear Slim, medium-fine nib
52 gsm B6 Tomoe River notebook by Sterling Ink
Midori MD A6 lined notebook (Amazon)
Traveler’s Company brass clip (Amazon)
Tim Holtz mini bulldog clips (Amazon)
Jenika’s Journals A6 Black Pueblo Leather notebook cover
Pen rest by FountainPENdulum
Current text: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Amazon)
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 52 gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook