Cassia is from Rohrer & Klingner, and they make a couple of my go-to standards. I’m a fan of violets and purples, so my expectations were high.

Cassia is a lovely, heavily saturated, deep, rich violet. I find inks like this to be very useful, effective note-taking accent and emphasis inks. It’s extremely legible, readable, and memorable. It isn’t a heavy shading ink, but the lighter and darker shades contrast beautifully. As you can see in the splatter, areas of pooling release a gorgeous green-gold sheen. I think of this as a royal violet, and to me it’s a very cheerful, confident color.

As a writing ink, Cassia performs very well in many ways. In my tests, it was best on Rhodia and Kokuyo papers, with Mnemosyne a close third. On all three, strokes were clean and crisp, with no feathering. Drying times were from 30-35 seconds. Rhodia and Kokuyo offered moderate shading, but Rhodia was the only one that showed hints of stroke edge sheening. Performance on Apica and office copy paper was terrible. Both were unusable.

Do I recommend Rohrer & Klingner Cassia? Yes, especially if you can stay away from cheap copy papers. If not, buy a bottle and save it for better occasions. Rohrer & Klingner inks are consistent and affordable. If you ask me, everyone needs more violet ink in their life!