Ink Review: Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte (Diamine Exclusive Ortloff Red)

Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte is made exclusively by Diamine Inks for Ortloff in Köln. In English we would call it Ortloff Red.

Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte  is a saturated dark red ink that exhibits some very nice shading as well as some fabulous green sheen. It was a pleasure to write with, flowed well and lubricated the nib smoothly.

It’s a dark maroon red that leans slightly pinkish, so it instantly reminded me of Montblanc Hitchcock ink. Fortunately I had one of my pens filled with Hitchcock ink so I was able to compare the two closely. They are an excellent colour match, but Ortloffs has the added advantage of it’s green sheen. Writing with Ortloffs on Tomoe River paper really showed this sheen very well, even with the fine nib in my red Kaweco AC Sport.

Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte is exclusively available in 80ml bottles from Orloffs in Köln Germany.

• Start-up: Immediate.
• Flow Rate: Excellent – quite wet.
• Lubrication: Excellent – felt really smooth across the page.
• Saturation: Saturated with sheen, but not so much that it dried out on my nibs.
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used.
• Show-Through/Bleed-through: A little seen on some of the papers I tried it on but I could easily write on the reverse of all of them.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Clogging: Not seen.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after several days in the pen.
• Staining (pen): Didn’t stain my sections or converters.
• Staining (hands): This doesn’t stain hands but needed two washes before my fingers were perfectly clean.
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, but shows a little water resistance.