This week we tested out Taccia Natane Ink from the company’s new Ukiyo-e ink series. In 2018, Taccia released its first inks, 13 basic, primary ink colors. This week’s featured ink is a 2020 release, and you’re going to want all the details!

All About the Ink Maker: Taccia

Taccia Pen Company believes in creating pens that are affordable, well-built, and stylishly designed. They want to provide fountain pen enthusiasts with the perfect accessory – something to collect, display, wear, and use to indulge their love of analog communication during the internet age.

Tacca fountain pen inks are safe for use with any fountain pen, and the company continues to come up with intriguing new additions to their ink series.

All About the Ink Series: Taccia Ukiyo-e Ink Series

This week’s ink, Taccia Natane, is a 2020 release added to the Taccia Ukiyo-e Ink. The Ukiyo-e Ink Series has two sub-set series:

• Hokusai Series: Japanese Landscape Series
• Syaraku Series: Facial Character Series

Each of the sub-series includes four ink colors, so Taccia’s Ukiyo-e ink series consists of a total of eight inks, all made in Japan. Natane ink is included in the Syaraku sub-series of Taccia’s Ukiyo-e ink series.

Pen Chalet is a proud, authorized retailer of Taccia products with a full range of Taccia fountain pens and fountain pen inks. Find your next Taccia product at Pen Chalet.

All About This Week’s Chosen Ink: Taccia Natane Ink

Taccia’s Ukiyo-e Natane ink is included in the Syaraku or Facial Character sub-series of Taccia’s Ukiyo-e ink series. Natane fountain pen ink is particularly unique: in color, representation, characteristics, and packaging. Taccia Natane is the only traditional Japanese woman/girl face included in the sub-series. The ink goes down in a medium to high saturation. The golden-brown ink color is not just unique, but beautiful, starting out light yellow-gold and getting darker as it dries. It even shows up really well on paper.

*** Don’t stop now. Keep reading for a chance to win the bottle of Taccia Natane fountain pen ink used for this week’s Pen Chalet Ink Review. (Or if you’re still cultivating the art of patience, scroll down to the bottom where you’ll find the link to enter this week’s giveaway).

Taccia Natane Ink

It’s Time: Taccia Ukiyo-e Natane Ink Review

This week we learned a lot about Natane ink from Taccia’s Ukiyo-e ink series. We ran all our regular tests to come up with the details you’ll need to decide if you should add this particular Taccia ink to your collection or not. Read the full review below!

Ink Review Testing Factors (to keep things scientific):

This week, while reviewing Taccia Natane fountain pen ink, we used a J Herbin spiral glass dip pen (which has a tip similar to a medium-fine fountain pen nib) on French-made Rhodia dot pad paper. We always list any products we used during our weekly ink reviews because different papers and nib sizes may produce different results. Remember that as you consider our review and conclusions.

What Sort of Ink Bottle Does Taccia Use?

Taccia Natane ink comes in a 40 ml. square glass bottle. When considering the Taccia fountain pen ink bottle, we liked that it was a heavy-weight bottle and was very professional. Our team thought the packaging was fantastic, including the internal protection built into the ink’s box. The design of the packaging was superbly functional, and we can really appreciate packaging that works.

The aesthetic presentation was just as fantastic with beautiful renditions of traditional Japanese facial caricatures in culturally significant attire. Each ink includes an artwork sample of all eight bottles in the complete Ukiyo-e ink series, including both Syaraku and Hokusai inks.

How Much Does Taccia Natane Ink Cost?

Taccia Natane ink is a mid-range priced fountain pen ink. It’s more expensive than Taccia’s regular ink line, but it’s worth it, especially if you take advantage of discount pricing at Pen Chalet.

How Did Natane Ink Respond During the 1 Dip Test?

We put Taccia’s Natane fountain pen ink to the test with our newest addition to the review routine, the 1 Dip Test. We use this test to see how far one dip can write on paper (dipping the pen in the ink only once). Taccia’s Natane ink easily only wrote across the paper on all three writing samples. (We used one dip per writing sample). Writing samples included: S, X, and scribble lines (see the photograph of the samples above). We were quite surprised by how well it performed during the 1 Dip Test, considering it’s a light color.

How Fast Does Taccia Natane Ink Dry?

Taccia Natane fountain pen ink had a dry time of approximately 14-15 seconds with medium to high saturation. Considering the dry time, this may not be an everyday home-office ink, but it is a great choice for special projects, mixed media, letters, notes, journals, etc.

Does Natane Ink Bleed Through?

We saw no bleeding during normal use of Taccia’s Natane fountain pen ink. We noticed some very slight bleeding during the heavy saturated cotton swab test, but only at the wettest points.

Was There Any Feathering?

We saw no feathering during normal use and no additional noticeable feathering during the water test.

How Does Taccia Natane Ink Stand Up to Water?

Our weekly ink review’s water test consists of letting the ink sample dry for about three minutes before running a wet cotton swab over the sample. This week’s ink is not meant to be waterproof, but we put every weekly ink to the water test regardless. During the water test, Taccia’s Natane ink had very light color smearing, but the lines were very legible with almost no distortion at all. There was virtually zero additional feathering. Overall, Taccia’s Natane ink held up well to our water test.

Does Natane Fountain Pen Ink Have Good Shading Traits?

Taccia Natane ink has some nice shading traits if you’re working with a nib that allows ink flow variation (like a stub or italic nib). We saw a dark golden-brown to a lighter yellow gold color. In addition, to which type of nib you are working with, your handwriting can also make a difference when you’re looking for good shading traits with a fountain pen ink.

Final Conclusion on Taccia Natane Ink:

This week’s ink is from Taccia Pen Company, a well regarded Japanese pen company. The 40 ml. fountain pen ink bottle is smaller than usual but interesting and lovely. And even in the smaller container, the inks fall into the mid-range price category. The packaging is top of the line in both function and presentation.

We enjoyed the attractive golden brown color of Taccia’s Natane ink, and the range of colors appearing on the page as it dries. It did have a longer than expected dry time – more than 10 seconds, so we wouldn’t suggest it as an everyday ink choice.

One of the high-performance Taccia inks included among the eight unique color options in the Ukiyo-e ink series, Natane is one of the four ink colors in the Syaraku sub-series. We appreciated the care taken with the ink line’s aesthetic, right down to an insert in the ink’s box showing a sampling of the artwork for each of the eight inks in the full series. Safe for use with all fountain pens, Taccia’s Natane ink got high marks in everything outside of dry time during this week’s ink review. Happy writing from Japan!

Enter to Win:

Enter to win the actual bottle of Taccia Natane fountain pen ink that Pen Chalet used in this week’s ink review:

a Rafflecopter giveaway