Yosimitu Kajiya Gyuto 180mm Aogami 2

Yosimitu Kajiya is a family run Kajiya (Smithery) in the small town of Shimabara, Nagasaki Prefecture and was established in 1937. Junichi Ide is the 3^rd generation blacksmith at Yosimitu Kajiya and does all stages of the blade making; free forging his blades from pre-welded “Rikizai” steel and grinding the edge by hand. Yosimitu Kajiya has always specialised in kitchen knives but also makes tools for the local agricultural and fishing industries, it is a traditional family run blacksmith. Junichi Ide wants to make sharp knives for everyone to use, Yosimitu Kajiya knives are thin, strong, rustic and built for daily use

The Gyuto is a Japanese version of a western Chef’s Knife, based off of French chefs knives in the 1880’s it was designed for cutting meat. Gyuto translates to “meat sword”, but it is a versatile all round kitchen knife that can be used for rock or push cutting styles. Due to the harder steel used for the cutting edge, Japanese Gyuto’s generally have thinner blades than a western knife of the same size.

Aogami, also known as Blue paper steel due to the colour of the paper it came wrapped in, is a high carbon steel made by Hitachi Metals. Aogami is known for its sharpness and edge retention, blue paper steels are considered some of the best carbon steels in the world. It’s like Shirogami but with added tungsten and chromium to give it better edge retention, it comes in 3 grades Aogami #1, #2 & Aogami Super.