TACCIA Sunaoiro Tsuchi (Golden Wheat) - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A warm mid-brown with a golden-amber undertone that shows at thin edges and where the swab runs out. Where the ink pools it drops to a very dark, almost blackish brown, so the same ink reads as light caramel in one place and near-black in another. A note on the name: also sold as as "Golden Wheat" and the box is illustrated with ears of wheat, but my swatches are noticeably browner and earthier than that suggests — more tobacco and cocoa than gold. The Japanese name 壌 (tsuchi) means soil or earth, which I think is the more honest description of what comes out of the pen. 

Shading: High, and it's the main event. Reviewers consistently rate the shading as high, and my drop tests bear that out — the tonal range between thin and pooled ink is dramatic. 

Sheen: None. 

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Wet.

The interesting bit: Sunaoiro was Taccia's first ink collection, a set of thirteen colours each carrying a Japanese name. Taccia describe the range as inspired by a pure and unaffected way of seeing colour — the feeling of opening your first box of crayons, and the box illustrations are by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sato. The other curiosity is the "Born in California" line printed on a bottle of Japanese-made ink: TACCIA was founded by Shu-Jen Lin in the United States and sold to Nakabayashi in Japan in April 2018, so the bottle is quietly carrying both halves of its own history. 

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.