Krishna Earl Grey Ink is one of 33 Krishna Super Rich Series of inks, with new colors being added. Krishna inks come in a small non-descript package, but pull a lot of “color weight” in the pen community. Krishna inks sheen, they shade, they pop with color and are inexpensive enough to allow writers to purchase of many colors to experiment with.

Earl Grey is a member of the Krishna Super Rich Series of inks, the standard Krishna inks that are are non-staining, easy flowing, clog free and safe for fountain pen use. Krishna inks are the brainchild of Dr. Sreekumar, who is a physician by day and a pen enthusiast at all other times. He continues to hone his craft in creating fabulous fountain pen ink colors with unique traits and characteristics.

Krishna Earl Grey ink is a nice muted blue-grey ink that has very nice saturation and shows up dark on white paper. Lighter strokes may produce a grey-blue color, where wet heavy strokes will produce a rich dark blue black with a just hint of grey.

Continuing reading for a chance to win the bottle of Krishna Earl Grey ink we used for this review.

Krishna Earl Grey ink Review

During our review of Krishna Earl Grey ink we noticed the following characteristics, which we hope you find useful in choosing your next dark blue-grey ink color:

Testing Factors

For our review, we used French made Rhodia dot pad paper, with a French made glass dip pen by J. Herbin. The dip pen has a tip that is similar to a fine tip fountain pen nib.

Bottle Sizes

Krishna Earl Grey ink comes in the standard Krishna ink bottle, which is a small portable 20 ml. glass bottle. Each bottle is very basic with a simple label indicating the color of the ink in a non-descript cardboard box. There is no labeling on the box but just the name of the ink handwritten on the outside of the box. This simple packaging works perfect providing an inexpensive way to test many fantastic ink colors.

Cost

Krishna Earl Grey ink retails for $8.00 per 20 ml. bottle, as do all Krishna Super Rich series colors. Other Krishna inks such as Kot-Massi, RC and Master Series retail for a slight bit more at $9.00 per 20 ml. bottle. Krishna inks are affordable, especially when you consider each bottle is imported directly from India.

Dry Time

We found a dry time of about 11 seconds during our review of Krishna Earl Grey ink. This is not super fast, but definitely acceptable for use as an every day type ink. The longer dry time is due to the high saturation of the ink.

Bleed Through

We didn’t notice any bleeding during our review of Krishna Earl Grey ink, even during our wet cotton swab test.

Feathering

On Rhodia paper, we found each line clear, crisp and distinct without any feathering whatsoever. Even during the water test, there was almost no feathering or line distortion at all, which is quite unusual for a non-waterproof ink.

Water Test

We conducted a water test where we run a wet cotton swab over an ink sample that has dried for about 3 minutes. The results were significant color smearing, which is not unusual, but very little additional feathering or line distortion. For a non-waterproof ink, Krishna Earl Grey ink held up fairly well.

Shading & Sheening

Krishna Super Rich ink series tend to have quite a bit of shading tendencies. Shading can be an art and will vary based upon the nib size, wetness or dryness of the nib, and the writing style of the user. Having said that, Krishna Earl Grey ink can produce some nice shading from its dark blue roots to a lighter blue-grey hue.

Conclusions

Dr. Shreekumur never disappoints and Krishna Earl Grey ink is a continuation of his ink creation ability. Krishna Earl Grey ink is reasonably priced ink and has a very nice dark muted blue shade with a grey hue. The shading can be fantastic, the bottle simple and affordable. The dry time is slightly longer than other inks, which we like to see under 10 seconds for everyday office and home use inks. Happy writing from India!

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