(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!)
The Joy in the Ordinary series from Colorverse is truly delightful, as a theme. What would astronauts miss when in space? Lots of lovely earth things, like hot coffee--the inspiration for Colorverse Coffee Break. I love a good warm brown ink, and this one is well up in the ranks with some of my favorites.
The packaging, as with any Colorverse ink, is so charming that you're inevitably smiling before you even set eyes on the ink itself. The box is fully decorated with delightful illustrations. When all the different colors are lined up, the illustrations on the outside of the boxes form one continuous scene. I don't know any other company that puts this much thought into their presentation, and I totally love it.
The ink bottle itself is an egg-shaped blown glass 30ml jar. The front is flattened where the label goes. It's a cute bottle, as all Colorverse bottles I've seen to date are. It's a practical shape, too, allowing for easy pen filling, even when the ink starts to run low. The smaller size bottle helps to keep the cost down, as well. This bottle retails for $13.75, which seems just right.
The ink itself is a nice warm brown. It leans a bit yellow, I think. This isn't a black coffee, or a creamy latte coffee. This is more like the weak coffee you get in a hotel lobby at 3am. But I dig it. Chromatography shows a lovely split between an almost purple-mauve, fading into pink, to coral, to bright yellow. It's easy to see where all that warmth is coming from. And Colorverse remains the most surprising brand when it comes to chromatography tests.
It has quite a lot of shading, ranging from a dry grass color to a rich chocolate. It's well balanced between wet and dry. It doesn't feel like a wet ink, but doesn't have the drag of dry ink, either. The dry time on it is decent, between 20 and 25 seconds. There is almost no water resistance to this ink at all. The slightest splash washes it clear away. A bit ironic, since the thing that most people seem to spill on their writing is coffee.
As far as comparisons go, I can't say that this ink is unique. There are a lot of similar colors out there. The closest in my swab collection is J. Herbin Lie de The--a funny naming convention coincidence. The J. Herbin is a little bit cheaper than this Colorverse, but I strongly prefer the Colorverse bottle.
I really like this new series from Colorverse. Their previous offerings are all excellent, but the larger sets they come in often exceed my ink budget. These smaller singles at affordable prices are just what I needed from this line. And while the colors so far aren't anything wild, they perfectly capture their theme of joy in the ordinary.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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