There are many fountain pen inks in the world, and Sailor Tea Time Series Fika Coffee Ink is one of them. It just so happens that, at the time of this writing, you can’t have it. Easily at least.
I’m sure it’s out there, somewhere, but don’t let the FOMO get to you. I was able to get mine from JetPens, where, at $18 for 20ml it lands in the “expensive per ml but I’m glad it’s a small bottle” category that I love.
Fika Coffee is a color that I have fallen in love with. I’ve raved about it on the podcast, and on stream. But don’t let that sway your thoughts of chasing it down, and I’ll tell you why right now: This is a basic ink color. Good performance, good flow, minimal shading, no sheen. Basic.
For some reason, I have found basic brown inks that meet my description of basic brown inks hard to find. What is my idea of a basic brown ink? Medium roast coffee. 72% cacao dark chocolate. No signs of caramel, toffee, orange, or red. Rich ink color, but not mixed with black ink. Simply, a pure dark brown line.
My issue, and why I’m fawning over this ink, is that I didn’t put in the work to find this shade of ink before Fika Coffee fell into my lap. This shade HAS to exist somewhere, right?
Col-o-ring paper.
The first place I went to look is the amazing resource that is Mountain of Ink. On the sidebar, scroll down to Ink by Color, click on Brown. Scrolling through the samples, you can eliminate 95% of the inks shown as it relates to my ideal brown ink. The rest, say Papier Plume Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Kaweco Caramel Brown, or Kobe 03 Kyu-kyoryuchi Sepia deserve a click through to the review and a decision on whether to explore them further.
That there are so few inks that represent my ideal brown is disheartening. Am I asking too much?
Yoseka Notebook.
Step two involves the mega-database that is Fountain Pen Companion. I pulled up the page for Sailor Tea Time Fika Coffee (all of 8 entries) to see what matches there might be in the digital color spectrum. You are unable to click through the color square to see which other inks are tagged with he same color (feature request!) but I could at least go to the Brands page and search for “Brown” and “Coffee” to see what other colors are assigned the same color space as Fika Coffee - inks like Laban Greek Mythology Demeter Brown.
With those two resources, I now have a list. I also have the wisdom of the crowd on my side as well. Readers with much more experience than myself will certainly have some great recommendations to take into account.
The Paper Mind Mitsubishi Bank Paper.
Why am I telling you all this? Fountain pen ink FOMO is the most pointless FOMO out there. I get it. I’ve been there. I FOMO’d plenty of Sailor Apricot back in the day, and later, Montblanc JFK. And it was pointless, as Sailor just reproduced it later, and Montblanc, well, Montblanc’ed themselves time and time again. Plus, plenty of other inks launched that are close enough matches by other brands.
I love Sailor Tea Time Series Fika Coffee. I’m fortunate to have a bottle. I don’t need to chase another bottle down, because I have endless options out there right now that are just as good. I just have to find them.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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