Hello, my name is Yosuke Kamata, the fourth generation of Kamata Hakensha.

Have you ever heard of a “Gyuto”?

It is a kind of all-purpose kitchen knife, a little narrower and sleeker than the familiar “Santoku” knives used at home.

Santoku knives are for home use, while Gyuto knives are used for professional work, and they come in a wide range of sizes, from small to large.

The knives in the photo are knives we sell. We took them in for resharpening.

VG10 Japanese Gyuto Knife 240mm, buffalo octagonal handle　

VG10” is the name of the steel material, which is a high-grade stainless steel produced by Takefu Special Steel.

It is a material with high hardness and toughness, and has not only good sharpness but also excellent abrasion resistance.

It is a typical steel material used for kitchen knives of excellent quality, from home use to work.

What you should pay attention to is the shape of the handle, which is a “Japanese handle” used for common sashimi knives and de-eba knives.

This model is called a “Japanese Gyuto Knife.

What is the difference between this model and the “Gyuto,” which is made of common wood and riveted together?

It is the thickness of the blade.

The Japanese Gyuto Knife is mainly used by chefs who prepare Japanese food and cut vegetables thinly and carefully, which requires a delicate cutting edge.

To achieve this, the overall thickness of the knife is made “thin” from the peak (back part) of the knife to the tip of the blade.

If the knife is “thick”, it will easily crack when cutting wide vegetables such as daikon radish, so a thin blade is preferred.

This used to be the explanation for Japanese Gyuto Knife,

Recently, however, the difference between the two has disappeared.

This is because people overseas are now demanding Japanese kitchen knives.

The style of handle used for this Japanese kitchen knife is very popular because it is a style that gives a sense of “Japanese tradition” from the point of view of people overseas.

Conventional thin-sliced Gyuto knives cause many problems, such as chipping the blade.

Therefore, Japanese manufacturers often attached a Japanese knife handle to the blade, which has the same thickness as that of a common Western knife.

Nowadays, the difference in blades between “Gyuto” and “Japanese Gyuto Knife” has almost disappeared.

When explaining the difference in our stores, we simply inform our customers that the only difference is the style.

Since kitchen knives are “tools”, the market price has been changing little by little according to the people who use the tools and the demand.

That may be the way knives, which are “tools”, should be.

See you soon.

Yosuke Kamata, 4th generation of Kappabashi Kamata Hakensha.

*This is a translation by a translation tool.