Ink Review: Rohrer and Klingner Morinda

Here it is, my first, and most difficult to capture, of a series of Rohrer & Klingner inks! German in origin, I thought it only appropriate to use a German made pen to conduct the review. In this case I used a Reform 1745. A great-quality-for-the-price piston filler, fine springy-nibbed, plastic bodied, 1980s West German pen. Please, forgive the inaccurate color scan, I tried photographing the review in all sorts of different light, but they all came out looking too orange. The below scan was the best result I got, but even the scan is too bright. The actual ink color is somewhere between dried blood and the mid-range reds in the rose pictured below.

[click image to enlarge]

I really enjoyed writing with Morinda. It is a perfect ink in the sense that there are no technical issues, it has great flow, minimal feathering, and no bleed-through, so the only thing I have to worry about when using it is whether or not I like the color of the ink. And, I do!

While I wasn't initially impressed with the color, as I wrote with it, it occurred to me that it would be a perfect red to write a love letter. Morinda has just enough purple in to soften the color, producing the same softening effect as the texture on a rose petal.

Rohrer & Klingner inks are German products and are difficult to find in the United States because they currently do not have a U.S. distributor. The ease of purchasing these inks, however, is about to improve, as The Pear Tree Pen Company, who provided me with these samples, just received a order for the inks. If you'l like to see Morinda and other R&K inks in person, I suggest ordering a few ink samplers to try them out for yourself.