Nagasawa Kobe Ink Monogatari Sumiyoshi Brown - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A dark, cool espresso brown. My swatches broadly match the official description but run cooler and greyer than you might expect. The dip-pen line reads as a greyed taupe-brown, handwriting sits close to brown-black, and heavy pools take on a dark slate, almost blue-black undertone.

Shading: Low. There’s some light-to-dark variation in wider lines, but it’s subtle in everyday writing.

Sheen: Minimal. A faint bronze-brown sheen appears at the edges of heavy pools only, so don’t expect it in normal writing.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Medium

The interesting bit: Sumiyoshi is a leafy district of Kobe where the novelist Junichiro Tanizaki lived. His former home, Ishōan, still stands there, and it’s where he wrote The Makioka Sisters. Nagasawa chose a traditional tea-brown to honour him, described in English as the colour of the writer’s favourite tea.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I’m a collector and I’m always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.