Hongdian Black Bottled Ink

This ink is absolutely beautiful. The bluish gray color is subtle, elegant, and incredibly versatile—it works just as well for everyday writing as it does for sketching or journaling. It has quickly become my favorite ink colors. The flow is smooth and consistent with no clogging or skipping, and it dries at a reasonable speed. Because it’s non-carbon, it feels safe and easy to use in fountain pens, even with regular use. The ink shades nicely without being distracting, giving handwriting a polished, professional look. The 60ml bottle is a great value, and I will definitely be purchasing this ink again. Highly recommended for anyone looking to add a unique yet practical color to their collection.

This ink is absolutely beautiful. The blackish green color has such a rich, sophisticated tone—dark enough to use every day, but with that subtle green depth that makes your writing feel special. Performance-wise, it’s just as impressive. The flow is smooth and consistent in my fountain pens, with no skipping or hard starts. It dries reasonably quickly and hasn’t caused any clogging issues at all, which is always a concern with bottled inks. I really appreciate that it’s non-carbon and pH neutral—it gives me peace of mind when using it in pens I care about. The bottle itself is well-designed too. The wide base makes filling easy to use and stable, and the screw-top lid seals tightly for storage. If you’re looking for a dependable ink with a unique, elegant color that still works beautifully for everyday writing, this one is a fantastic choice. I’ll definitely be repurchasing.

I have tried several Hongdian ink colors at this point and have been very pleased with all of them. They might not have as much depth or pigment as other more premium brands, but the colors they offer are attractive and i find since the ink is "looser" or les viscous (not sure if thats the right word) i never have problems with drying or clogged nibs. Some inks can dry out if you don't use a pen for a few days, i dont have that problem with this ink. The lighter colors are sometimes a bit too faint in my opinion, but those lighter colors look great when using a broad or stub nib. I think these inks are very good quality considering they cost less than half the price of premium brands.

This is my very first ink and I made a good choice. It dried quickly, super easy to use, the bottle and opening are perfect size for inking a pistón pen. The black is indeed a lovely deep color, not too runny or thick texture and versatile. Decent value.

It’s a pretty OK ink. It writes smooth and is very pigmented. I think the green leans very blue, but it’s still a pretty color.

Beautiful, saturated color. The ink writes very smoothly in every pen I’ve used it in! The ink has very little / no bleed-through even with less expensive paper. Great value too.

This is a really good and underrated black ink. Its a nice deep dark black color. Of the 12 black inks I've tested, this is probably tied for 2nd or 3rd darkest. It may be difficult to tell in the picture, but its pretty clear in person. The darkest black is Cross Black. 2nd is a toss up between Noodler's X Feather, Kaweco Black Pearl, and Hongdian non carbon Black. Kaweco Black Pearl has a cool color temperature in some lighting conditions, X Feather seems neutral, and so does Hongdian non carbon Black. This Hongdian non carbon Black has good flow and is fairly smooth. It was well behaved on both ends of the nib spectrum - 1.9 Stub nib on one end (which is what I used in the picture for all of the writing samples), and a really tight Extra Fine nib on the other. I would put the amount of time it takes to dry in the medium range. It takes about 20 seconds to dry when using the 1.9 stub nib, which isn't too bad since it puts down a lot of ink. It only takes about a second to a second and a half when using the Extra Fine nib. It has pretty good water resistance, but its not as good as Noodler's X Feather in that regard. This leads to the one thing I don't like about this ink, which is that it turns purple when it gets wet. That is a minor pet peave of mine when dealing with black inks. I really prefer that they stay on the gray scale when they get wet. When cleaning out nibs or cartridge converters, this ink will turn a very deep purple when coming into contact with water and turns a nice light purple as it gets more diluted. When getting wet on paper, purplish color will come up off of the page first, but the color that remains on the page it still black, or sometimes charcoal gray depending on how much ink lifted off when it got wet. This ink is a great value and a real sleeper as far as black inks go. It will be in my regular rotation along with Noodler's X Feather and Cross Black (if I can ever find a bottle of it). Its also the least expensive of those 3. For what its worth, Kaweco Black Pearl is also pretty good except it has poor water resistance and doesn't flow for crap out of Extra Fine nibs. Hard Starts are the norm, and skipping isn't out of the question, which is why it won't be in my rotation once I am done with my cartridges. I haven't had any flow issues with it out of my stub nibs, but I need a black ink that works in Fine and Extra Fine nibs as well.

Beautiful blue ink in a nice glass bottle. I was hesitant to purchase this ink because it wasn’t from a “mainline” or popular ink manufacturer. However, I quickly found out that the color is gorgeous, flows nicely in my pen, and goes down well on the cheap paper I was using. I didn’t find that it feathered but I bled through a bit where my pen lingered on the paper. If I kept my pen moving, it was fine. Easy to use and in a great size for the price.