(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
A few weeks back, I tried out my first Monteverde fountain pen ink and was pleasantly surprised. Since then, I've acquired another Monteverde ink, and while it doesn't perform as good as the previous, it's still a beautiful color and well-performing ink. Monteverde Emerald Green is a beautiful color, and I've really been enjoying using it as spring comes around.
There are several blues that easily make my top 5 lists, and I don't even need much time to decide. Greens, however, are a bit more elusive for me. I haven't settled on a list of favorites because I'm still working on finding what I like, and it doesn't help that there are an endless amount of green inks out there. It's slow work, but it's enjoyable.
Emerald Green takes its name from the emerald jewel, and it lives up to that name quite well. It's not what I would call a true emerald green, but it gets close and manages to be beautiful in the process. At the end of the day, I'm less interested in the name of the ink compared to how I like the color and ink properties.
Emerald Green is a light to medium green hue depending on how much ink is on the page. At times, you can detect more yellow and a touch of blue, giving it a pleasant teal or lime hint. Even with these other tones, it's impossible to mistake this for another color. It's absolutely green, and it's a beautiful shade.
Just like the Scotch Brown ink I reviewed, this ink has Monteverde's ITF (Ink Treatment Formula) that supposedly makes it perform at a higher level. Thinks like easy and consistent flow, resistance to drying when the cap is off, nib lubrication, and dry times. Like I said in my earlier review, I don't know (or really care) about their treatment system; whatever they're doing seems to work just fine. This is a very well-behaved ink. It flows well in the pens I've used, it doesn't have any trouble with starting or skipping, even after being uncapped and unused for a minute. It also does really well after being capped and unused for over a week — the ink usually started flowing just fine after the first stroke of a letter. Impressive.
The dry time is also a positive aspect of this ink. I found that the ink was dry on the page within 10-15 seconds in most cases. Obviously, this time increases as the nib size increases, but it manages to dry quickly in general.
Shading is great with this ink, though I wish it had just a little bit more variation. When you look at the ink after it dries, it's easy to see the shading between the fast and slow strokes of the letters and where the ink pools. But, the shading doesn't occur as effortlessly as other favorite inks. Still, it's nothing to criticize — it does a great job shading.
One thing I did notice was that the ink had significant show-through on some papers. Specifically, the untreated Baron Fig paper suffered the most, and also exhibited a good amount of feathering. But, on coated papers (Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Apica), it showed through very little and had no feathering problems. Sure, some inks perform well on every paper you throw at it, but this Monteverde still does a very good job considering. Part of using fountain pens is understanding that each pen, ink, and paper combination are unique and require a bit of learning to find what suits it best.
Overall, I've really been enjoying the Monteverde Emerald Green. It's a pretty good deal on JetPens at about $8 for a 30ml bottle. If you really love this ink, you can also purchase it in a massive 90ml bottle for just $16. If you're looking for a new green to try, consider this one!
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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