This is a first: Use that all time: click mail icon far right of contact and new mail window comes up. I'm guessing no has ever seen that not work. I hadn't until last week. thanks.

This is on your Mac, NOT your iPhone, correct?

If so, the "Mail" icon should be blue, and if it isn't, have you checked to make sure the contact's email address is a valid address and not mistyped?

Yes, Blue, DEsktop, and now seems to self resolved, (though for unrelated reasons, did reboot since I posted)

Nevertheless it's an issue that now coming up quite a bit, so I'll "try' to remember a reboot solves it. Anyone else seen this issue?

Okay, I know this is nitpicking, but just so there is no confusion, the Mail icon in Contacts is blue ONLY if the accent color selected in System Preferences > General is multicolor or blue and there is a valid email address for the contact. On my systems the Mail icon in contacts is in "orange" but it could be any one of eight different accent colors.

Thanks for clarifying that functionality (which I've never investigated), but to nitpick a bit further, I haven't got a multicolor option in Catalina, only the eight standard(?) colors and "Other," which calls up the color wheel.

Monterey has other subtle but nice UI enhancements in addition to multicolor. My favorite is the ability to change not only th size of the pointer, cut also the color fill and outline color. It’s a small thing but I really find it helpful.

Changing cursor size isn't new to Monterey: Catalina > System Prefs > Accessibility > Display > Cursor. Changing cursor colors is. (Sounds like it could be fun.)

I can't quite imagine what "multicolor" looks like.

As far as I can tell multiocolor means just that. Instead of a single bas cooler scheme, different items have unique colors. This has been an option on Apple Watch faces for a yyear or two now.

Thanks. I was thinking literally, i.e. multi, rather than single, color per item.

It would appear that multi-color has yet to be fully implemented in the current beta. At the present time I can tell no difference between multi-color and blue accent color schemes except in System Preferences > General. 😵‍💫