Ink Swatch Wednesday: Micahfinds x Robert Oster Black Gulaman and Sago at Black Gulaman

I saw a video from @Inkdependence (Mike Matteson) about Robert Oster Sago at Black Gulaman ink, and almost immediately had to buy it and its non-shimmer counterpart, Black Gulaman, from Endless Pens. I say almost immediately because I did wait a bit before purchasing, because I wanted to be good and not buy inks when I had just bought an expensive pen, but I also didn't want the ink to sell out and miss my chance to pick them up. FOMO won. 😝

Anyway, "sago at black gulaman" is a Filipino drink, sort of like a boba drink, but with a water flavored with brown sugar simple syrup as the drink base instead of the more typical (in the US) tea or juice. Black gulaman is a dark brown gelatin, and sago are like the tapioca balls that people may be more familiar with. "Sago at Black Gulaman" is Tagalog, and translates to "Sago and Black Gulaman" or how some people might order it, "black gulaman with pearls".

The Robert Oster ink is a nice darker toffee-ish brown that, depending on the paper used, can have a reddish undertone. The color really does remind me of the drink.

Sago at Black Gulaman is a shimmery version:

There is a ton of warm gold shimmer in the ink which effectively makes the ink look lighter, but I did swatch the ink without agitating the bottle, and it's clear that the two inks are using the same base color.

As usual, I couldn't wait to ink a pen up with the new ink, so I picked my custom Autumn Leaves pen from Robs Pen Works. Originally I had received and inked the pen about a month ago when it was still too hot to consider fall at all, but most recently it has gotten colder and blustery around here, so the pen is more seasonally appropriate now. 🙂 Even though this Black Gulaman ink isn't quite a match, I think it works well in the pen anyway.

The ink is fairly wet. On Iroful paper (the lower writing sample), the ink flows very wet and looks much cooler, with no discernible reddish tones compared to the writing sample above it on Kokuyo Business paper (which shows off ink characteristics similarly to Tomoe River paper). The line widths on the Kokuyo Business paper are also thinner, particularly noticeable in the reverse writing.

Once again, another brown ink seduced me. But of course I had to have it, thanks to the ties to Filipino culture. Now if only the other Filipino food inks (scroll down to the Straits Pens section showing 3 inks – Sisig, Pork Tocino, and Ube Ice Cream) from past Manila Pen Shows would be sold here!