Pennonia Méregzöld - Seafoam or Poison?

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

Pennonia is a company founded by Hungarian fountain pen enthusiast Máté Bikfalvi who decided to launch his own line of inks in early 2020. There are currently over 40 different inks, not including exclusives like Inkdependence’s Cheerio Waterbus. I will be reviewing Pennonia Méregzöld, which we received for review from Vanness Pens.

Back in the day, Máté’s family computer had a seafoam teal Windows 95 background. Máté’s mom thought it looked like méregzöld, which is Hungarian for “poison green”. So when this dark teal ink was created, the name was an obvious choice and Pennonia Méregzöld was born. Pro tip: if you want to learn how to pronounce the name of this and other Pennonia inks, head over to this helpful pronunciation page

Pennonia Méregzöld comes in a 50ml glass bottle which is packaged in a white box with a round color swatch on top which I find super helpful for locating colors in my ink drawers.

Unlike Mike’s Cheerio Waterbus which is a little more green, Méregzöld leans a bit more blue. It is a fairly saturated ink that has average to slightly wet flow in the Broad Stub.

Similar inks include Diplomat Caribbean, Stilo e Stile Roman Bronze Oxidation, Sailor 2022 Pen Show Ink and Robert Oster Aqua.

Dry times were pretty fast on more porous paper like the Hamelin index card, but was upwards of 30 seconds on 68 gsm Tomoe River paper and more than 60 seconds to fully dry on 52 gsm. If you want faster dry times, consider a finer nib, dryer nib/feed and less coated paper or all of the above.

Dries pretty quickly on this Hamelin index card.

Dry times on 68 gsm Tomoe River. The Broad Stub is a bit of a wet writer but it definitely takes a while to dry, unless you write with the nib upside down which usually has a drier flow.

Dry times on 52 gsm Tomoe River - not surprising that this takes even longer to dry.

I have had Pennonia Méregzöld inked up in a Newton Prospector with a Franklin-Christoph Nagahara Broad Stub nib for the past 3 months and it always starts up right away even if I haven’t written with the pen/ink in a few weeks. It is a lovely shade of teal that reminds me of the ocean. I picked it because it pairs beautifully with this Earth Magic material from Jonathon Brooks.

Pennonia Méregzöld in a Newton Prospector in Earth Magic with a Broad Stub on 68 gsm Tomoe River.

Brooks’ materials are stunning and this is no exception. I absolutely love it when I find a good ink to match.

Pennonia Méregzöld sells for $13 USD for a 50 ml bottle, which is a good price for a nice amount of ink. I don’t care what the name really means, because Méregzöld definitely is not poison green but a beautiful teal ink that I am really enjoying using.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Pennonia Cheerio Waterbus Ink Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

“See you later, Cheerio Waterbus” - what the heck, Kimberly? That doesn’t even rhyme! I know, I know! There are “goodbye phrases” that rhyme in English like “See you later, alligator” and “In a while, crocodile”, but did you know that other languages have similar rhyming sayings for “see ya”? If you check out this Twitter post by Adam Sharp, you’ll find foreign language equivalents including the Dutch’s “Aju paraplu” (“bye umbrella”) or Basque’s “Agur yogur” (“bye yogurt”), but the one that we’re talking about today is “Szervusz vízibusz” which is Hungarian for “cheerio waterbus”! Mike Matteson of Inkdependence thought that was cool and it would be a great name for his ink collaboration with Hungarian ink maker, Máté Bikfalvi of Pennonia Inks.

Released just a few weeks ago in late March, Pennonia x Inkdependence Cheerio Waterbus’ first online batch sold out on the same day and the remaining inks were gone before Saturday afternoon at the Atlanta Pen Show! I was glad I was able to pick up my ink from him at the show before they were all gone! (Don’t worry, more is coming)

Cheerio Waterbus comes in a 60ml glass bottle which is packaged in a white box with Mike’s logo on the side and a round color swatch on top (I love this so I can see what colors are in my ink drawers). The bottle also has a nice swatch on the front, Mike’s logo on the right and “Thanks for choosing Pennonia ink” in Hungarian on the left.

Don’t ignore this advice! You really need to shake it like a Polaroid picture!

There’s a reason you gotta shake the bottle. There is a layer of blue pigment at the bottom.

On Col-o-ring cards, you can see that it is a nice green-leaning teal mixed with blue pigment, which makes the ink shift colors depending on how much pigment you get when you’re writing. You can see the pops of blue in the swatches and the writing sample. I used a Kakimori brass dip nib on the swatch cards. For the other writing samples, I started out with a Leonardo Momento Zero Grande in Caraibi, which is a really great match for all the variations of green and blue that you get from Cheerio Waterbus.

Similar inks include Robert Oster Tranquility, 3 Oysters Aqua Green, Colorverse Morning Star and Robert Oster Marine. These are all just a teensy bit more blue than Cheerio Waterbus. I color-corrected this picture so the swatches would be more accurate, but it makes the Col-O-Ring cards look more yellow.

Pigmented inks can be (but aren’t always) difficult to clean and possibly stain, so I decided to unink my Leonardo Caraibi, which has a captured converter. I only had it in the pen for a day but I didn’t have any problems cleaning it out, other than constantly twisting the converter because that’s the only way to clean these kinds of pens. I switched to a Levenger True Writer, Teal Appeal, so I could use a converter and not worry about any staining (so far so good). Both have Fine European-sized nibs, but the Leonardo writes wetter due to the larger nib/feed, so I was able to see more blue in that writing sample. As with any pen inked up with a pigmented ink like Cheerio Waterbus (or with shimmer inks), you should periodically agitate it to make sure the pigment is mixed well with the dye. Tip: You can agitate a pen with pigment or shimmer by gently rocking it back and forth a few times (nib down, then up, then down, repeat), rolling it around on the table (with the cap on in case of impending gravity!), shaking it gently, or moving the converter piston up and down a few times in combination with other methods.

The wetter pen (top) got me more blue.

Just look at the green, teal and blue in that swatch!

The color shifting wasn’t as noticeable on 24lb copy paper.

The flow is average to slightly wet but it still dried fairly quickly with the Levenger on the index card. On 68 gsm Tomoe River paper, it took a bit longer, especially with the Leonardo, probably 10 seconds more.

Dry time was 25-30 seconds on this Exacompta index card (yay, I found some white ones!)

Now, I know this isn’t meant to be a waterproof or water-resistant ink but since the blue is pigmented, I was curious to see how it would behave if doused with water.

Writing on 24lb copy paper and letting it dry completely before running it under water.

Definitely not waterproof but might be readable if there was more space between the letters.

This is a great ink that flows well and is a great color with super cool blue popping in and out. Mike tells me that he will be getting the next batch in 2 more weeks, so keep an eye out on his Inkdependence IG and his store.

(I purchased this directly from Mike and picked it up at the Atlanta Pen Show.)

Pennonia Zuzmó Lichen Ink Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

This clay-tea-green is basically my favorite color, so I am super excited to have it in fountain pen ink form with Pennonia Zuzmó Lichen, even if I must acknowledge that it's not a terribly practical ink color. It is fun and interesting, perfect for art or accents, but would be tricky to see if it was pages of text.

Lichen has a lot of character, with shades of green, putty, and even a bronzey-brown showing through in different concentrations and shading. The chromatography is downright mystifying with a split of bright primary colors. When the ink first hits the page, it is more of a pale, leafy green, but it then darkens to what is seen in the pictures here. It's difficult to capture the differences in shade, but it's a really cool transformation to watch.

This ink has a fairly normal dry time, with everything staying put after 20-25 seconds. It doesn't feel like a wet ink when writing, but it doesn't feel dry, either. It's well balanced and flows nicely. I loaded it in one of my wettest nibs on purpose, hoping that the wet nib would bring out the pale color a bit better. In a very fine nib, this color would be quite difficult to see, I think.

There is no water resistance to this ink. It washed away completely when water was sprinkled or wiped across it.

It does show shading very well, but doesn't appear to have a true sheen. Just layers of color that show at different depths, which creates a bit of a sheen-like effect. It's really gorgeous.

The bottle I received is 50ml, in brown glass with a black lid. It's a nice bottle, sturdy and easy to fill from. It costs just under $10, which is a fantastic deal. A slightly different shaped 60ml bottle sells for around $13, also a great deal.

This is the second Pennonia Ink I've tried and I've liked both of them a lot. This one is my favorite, though. I want to get a big music nib and write a whole book in it. Because practicality is clearly not my priority.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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