review: de atramentis sha wujing

We're taking a look at an ink that you can only find at one store: Ty Lee (小品雅集), located in Taipei, Taiwan.

Sha Wujing is one of a handful of inks that is manufactured by De Atramentis but carried exclusively by the Taiwanese fountain pen store, Ty Lee. This is part of the Journey to the West line, featuring labels with characters from the Chinese novel. The tale of Sha Wujing is too long to tell here, but he was a general in heaven before he became a disciple of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang.

De Atramentis inks come in this really interesting glass bottle that kind of looks like a spool of thread. It has a really cute, dark green label that features an image of Sha Wujing and his name in a in a style like small seal script. The other line of text says that the ink is made in Germany.

I've never finished a De Atramentis bottle, but I am concerned that you'll have the last dregs of ink stuck in the bottom "rim," especially since the glass isn't blown perfectly. Only time will tell, I suppose! You get 35ml of ink.

Sha Wujing is a hunter green-ish color. I'm not sure why the ink is this color; I don't know why green is the color to associate with this figure! I was thinking more like a sandy color or water blue, since Sha Wujing is associated with both of these things.

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The ink is pretty waterproof: you'll likely be able to keep most of your handwriting, and read it relatively well. It does take a little while to dry, however. On Midori MD paper, it takes more than 60 seconds, but in normal use on Tomoe River paper, I would say that in normal use it takes about 45 seconds to dry.

As always, here's a picture of it in use:

Sha Wujing doesn't show any shading. I think this is one of the first inks I've reviewed in a while that doesn't have even a little bit of shading! It also doesn't sheen. I guess you could say it's a bit of a boring ink.

I compare it here to five other inks: De Atramentis Virgo, Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrün, J. Herbin Vert Empire, Sailor Jentle Tokiwa-matsu, and Sailor Jentle Rikyu-cha. I don't think it's similar to any of these inks. It's more of a true, cool-neutral color, and I don't really have anything in my collection like it!

In my TWSBI Eco with a broad nib, Sha Wujing flows well. My Eco has average flow and is nothing interesting to write home about, though it does write smoothly. I haven't had any issues with hard starts, nor is there any nib creep. They work well together! That's about all I need.

Though De Atramentis is carried at a lot of retailers, Sha Wujing isn't available outside of Ty Lee. However, having had experience with other De Atramentis inks, I do really enjoy the way that they flow and they tend to be well-behaved. I would certainly recommend the brand as a whole, even if Sha Wujing isn't very accessible.