Thank you all so much for posting your comments here, reading all your comments finally helped me make a decision! We decided to go for leathered Taj for our kitchen renovation. Bacskplash, countertops, island…We have dark, honed marble now and ceaserstone and the marble etched and stained horribly. We were thinking of dolomitic stone ( similar to marble, not as stain resistant as quartzite) but after reading comments here, I decided for leathered TM. I do not want to worry, we cook a lot and are not super careful….Thank you. I will Post photos when ready, but here is the slab for now. It is polished, the stone place gets it honed or leathered. I like the look and feel of leathered stone.

@typeandrun, thank you for the response and feedback. Just out of curiosity, was honing an option when you were making your decision. This gives it the matte look but without the texture. We are going with a dark greenisland and warm white perimeter cabinets and I really like the Taj Mahal. I just want to make sure I get slabs that are more cream than beige. That's the toughest part b/c they look so different in the warehouses than they will in real life.

We have quite a lot of Taj Mahal. It took 3 years for our home to be completed and we just moved in 4 weeks ago. I have leathered Taj in my laundry room, working pantry and my kitchen. I also put Taj Mahal, not leathered, in our master bathroom. I love it. We did a different Quartzite in the guest baths, powder room and and on our two fireplace surrounds. So far, so good. I am careful with it, but not any more so than I always was with my choices of granite, in the past. Best of luck to you on your decision❣️

Yes, TM is usually a higher price bracket, but not the highest priced slabs out there! Some of it is market/region dependent. Inventory seems to be limited for most slabs due to covid and lots of shipments not making it to the US over the past year. I was talking to a fabricator this past week and she said that they have been waiting for some materials for months and they keep getting pushed back with no definite arrival dates. I found some slabs in November for a future project. No guarantee that I would find anything similar when I would need them, so I bought them and they will sit there for several months. Wasn't about to plan a whole project and then have a major element be out of stock!