Time for Orange! Iroshizuku yu-yake

Fall is here and winter isn't far either. Today has been the first cold day and we've had the first snowfall in parts of the country. The leaves that have been sporting warm yellows and reds for weeks have now gone limp and will fall in a matter of days. It's high time for warm colours!

Also in inks I find that I prefer cool blues and teals in summer, but keep going back to oranges, reds and brown in winter. At the moment an especially beautiful orange/burnt yellow ink is sloshing around in the tank of my gorgeous Montblanc 149 with super broad oblique nib: Iroshizuku yu-yake.

Iroshizuku yu-yake in Montblanc Meisterstück 149

Definitely one of those inks which are made for wet, wet, wet nibs. It might also work with a narrower tip if the pen is wet enough, else legibility might suffer.

I'm not going to go into the details of ink reviewing a lot since I a) don't have access to a scanner and b) am not 100% sure my monitor is calibrated enough to show the finest nuances of inks plus c) and most importantly I don't have the scientific interest to analyze my inks in terms of flow, feathering and what not.

So in all shortness and very subjectively: That is a really nice ink! Look at the shading. It looks best on ivory or cream coloured paper like the one in the picture. It's 100% cotton Büttenpapier (watermarked paper) by German papermill DFW in Dresden. Like all cotton papers it absorbs quite a bit of ink so you will need a wet pen or the lines will look skinny.

Iroshizuku yu-yake in Montblanc Meisterstück 149

The colour reminds me of something I can't quite put my finger on, maybe something I used to see when I was a child, but definitely something associated with fall. Pumpkins? Crisp, brown leaves on a sunlit path? No, that's not it though close. In any case it's a good memory. Maybe it will come back one day.

The ink also works perfectly with the 149, which currently is my go-to pen for writing letters and journal. It's surprising how easily your handwriting will fit into common boundaries even with such a broad nib as long as there's some line variation involved to keep your letters open (except for the Es, but that's not due to the nib. I manage to get closed-up Es with extra fine nibs - another aspect my handwriting still needs improvement in.)
I also love the ink window, not only for being convenient but also because it reminds me of film rolls.

The text, by the way, is a "Lord of the Rings" quote. I love so many passages of those books, they give me the goosebumps. It's the part where Gimli is scolded by Celeborn for stirring up the evil in Moria and crossing their border and is then consoled by Galadriel. One of my favourites.

Another one is where Gimli tells Legolas about the wonder of the caves at Helm's Deep. (Yes, I like Gimli!)