Old-fashioned in more ways than one (J. Herbin Lie de Thé)
The paper is Clairefontaine 90gsm. Text from Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.
J Herbin Lie de Thé1 is a medium golden brown with a slightly dry flow and a lubricated feeling. It has a strong water-resistant component. It feathers and bleeds noticeably on uncoated paper.
I got this ink in international cartridge form, mostly for the packaging: a small metal canister which has an old-timey look and, unlike the cardboard boxes most cartridges are sold in, doesn’t feel constantly on the verge of collapse. It can fit up to 8 cartridges, but contains 6, for a total of 4.2ml of ink. I bought it from the quirky Scriptum Fine Stationery in Oxford for around £3.2
The canister, plus the blunt syringe I use to get ink out of the cartridges so I can put it in incompatible pens.
Lie de Thé shades smoothly and plentifully, giving it a gentle and slightly watery look. The way it shades towards gold reminds me of the iron gall inks which you sometimes see used in historical documents, the ones made from oak trees or the like. It’s not as dark as those, though.
Lamy Safari, B nib
In fact, I think this is a (modern, safe) iron gall ink. Similar to other iron galls I’ve tried like Diamine Registrar’s or TWSBI Blue-Black, it goes down light and dries noticeably darker. In this case the colour change is not so fast that you could get distracted watching it. When washed with water, a small amount of reddish pigment comes off, but the writing remains as a cooler brown.
Lie de Thé has the kind of romantic colour that seems best suited for an art project or an aesthetic scrapbook, but even for regular writing it’s smooth, readable and comfortingly water-resistant. If you like the old-timey aesthetic of fountain pens and want to feel like a historical figure every time you sit down to write, this may be one for you.
Pilot Kakuno, F nib
Comparisons
Diamine Chocolate Brown is similar but a lot more red. It has a wetter flow and a fainter water-resistant component.
Both with the same Lamy Safari, B nib
In use
I don’t think I will get a bottle of Lie de Thé after using up my cartridges, but it does make me want to try other shades of brown ink. I like how it contrasts against cool colours without being too loud.
Lamy B nib on Optik paper, with SKB Blue and Pilot Blue
Kakuno F nib on Midori Soft Color cream notebook paper, with Lennon Tool Bar Wenshan Pouchong. That was in a different Kakuno I had inked for about a month, so it had evaporated and gotten a bit darker.
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Literally translates to… Dregs of Tea? Is this a reference to reading one’s fortune in tea leaves? ↩︎
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By the way, you can see the 500ml bottles of J Herbin ink in the display at Scriptum! If you are in Oxford, make sure to check out Pens Plus as well - they are as close as two stationery shops could get to polar opposites. ↩︎