Monteverde’s California Teal is a teal ink in the same way that a California Stop1For those of you who didn’t grow up with this phrase in the Pacific Northwest, if someone slows down their car but rolls through a stop sign, we call that a “California Stop”. is a stop, which is to say… it’s not. It strikes me as more of a pine green, most of the time. But whatever you call it, it’s a beautiful color with a red sheen that is sometimes visible on normal writing. Nice.
I told myself that I was buying this ink because it was dark enough to pass for a black ink for every-day use, and while that’s not strictly true, when it’s used in a wet pen, it does produce a nearly black line.
I appreciate the fact that this is a lubricated ink (I have a 1990s Waterman that really benefited from it2The lubrication of the ink helps with moving parts in the pen, like the non-standard converter that would be relatively expensive to replace).
When it comes to ink flow, California Teal seems to be a true medium; neither wet nor dry. It works well with my glass dip pens, and reasonably well with my Zebra G nib pens, too, but more importantly, it flows well from fine and medium nib pens (I haven’t tried a broad nib yet).
Dry time is pretty quick for an ink with a nice sheen; on Clairfontane (which has a very smooth, non-absorbent surface), it stays pretty wet for about 20 seconds, and then very quickly dries all at once, with only the thickest strokes remaining wet at 30 seconds.
There is no water resistance, unfortunately.
All in all, Monteverde’s California Teal is a beautiful, well-behaved green ink… ok, that appears teal if it’s thin enough… with a nice red/purple sheen. I keep it in two of my pens right now.
What do you think of California Teal? Let me know in the comment section below!