Taccia Midori
Ink Review #2
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color/properties:
Taccia Midori is a saturated dark green that shades with a soft gradient in cursive, and a soft cut when writing in print, wherever the ink pools. Being a wetter and more saturated ink, however, the ink can often appear more solid, and almost matte in texture, especially when used with wetter pens. There’s also a dull, black-red sheen that is easily visible in the ink splat. This does appear in normal writing, but it’s mostly around the edges of shaded areas, or where letters overlap each other, or themselves.
White papers brighten up the color considerably, while cream papers seem to mute out a lot of the ink’s blue undertones, giving the ink a much earthier look.
Ink Splat
Performance on paper:
For a wetter ink, Midori is surprisingly well-behaved. There’s still some minor bleed-through in the Kokuyo notebook, specifically with the stub and the architect nibs, but otherwise the ink didn’t show any signs of bleeding or feathering on the other papers. This ink should be safe to use on most fountain pen-friendly paper.
The dry times were unfortunately well below average: not only did the ink fail to dry within 30 seconds in a lot of the tests, but even the needlepoint could take up to 20 seconds to finish drying on some of the test pages. The nibs that didn’t finish drying within 30 seconds took anywhere from 50-60 seconds to dry.
Midori green has some water resistance, but the color quickly clouds after water exposure, and washes over anything that was written, creating a difficult-to-read, hazy mess.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Taccia Midori has a notably generous flow, and it was well-lubricated and consistent across all the test nibs. That’s why it was unexpected when I ran into some consistent hard starting with not only the broad nib but the medium nib as well. Once the nibs got going, everything felt fine, but if I had the pens off the page for more than 5 or so seconds, there was a good chance I would run into another hard start as the ink dried up in the nib.
Given the ink’s high saturation, the cleaning process wasn’t as bad as I expected. It takes a tad longer than you would expect from less saturated inks, but it didn’t leave any stains or residue in the pen, and it still only took sets of soaking and flushing to clean out.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white) with a medium nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a Franklin-Christoph SIG double-broad nib.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (cream) with a medium nib.
Performance in a pen: 7/10
Performance on paper: 9/10
Color saturation: 7/10
Sheening: 2/10
Shading: 3/10
Dry time: 3/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 7.5/10
Shimmer: None
My personal thoughts...
When I started working on this review, I found myself a little disappointed to find out that the ink was so problematic. I really like Taccia Midori, and I really wanted it to perform well. I’ve had Midori in my Taccia Spectrum since I bought it years ago (it was the complimentary ink I chose from the Taccia booth when I bought the pen). I liked the ink so much that I never considered the performance issues until now. I was just taken aback by the juicy flow, and the deep, earthy, mossy-green color. I’m pretty sure one of the people I was with at the time audibly gasped when they put the aforementioned pen to paper. It was just that good. We weren’t worried about dry times, hard starts, or bleeding. Honestly, if you want to enjoy this ink, maybe you shouldn’t be worried about it either.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a Taccia Spectrum (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 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook