Japanese chef's knife Ajigataya

The Japanese language is a very figurative language. The small syllable "Na" symbolizes large vegetables, more precisely leafy vegetables - don't you immediately see mountains of spinach, chard or Asian lettuce, a head of Chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage or stalks of palm cabbage in your mind's eye? It is precisely the large-sized ones that are the specialty of the "Nakiri", which is equipped with a 16.5 cm long and slightly flared, wide blade to cut them precisely into fine strips, leaf by leaf. As sharp as it is, this blade also effortlessly cuts daikon, the Japanese radish, into the finest sticks.

Mutsumi Hinoura from Sanjō in Niigata Prefecture (Honshū Island) is the cutler who forges these Japanese chef's knives for us. He is the son of the renowned cutler Tsukasa Hinoura. "Ajigataya" is his blacksmith's mark, which he uses in honor of his grandfather - you will find it on every piece he makes. All the knives in this series are carefully forged and sharpened by hand.

The master blacksmith uses a so-called pre-laminated layer steel. The Japanese term for this is Riki-zai-Warikomi. In German: Three layers - a cutting layer, surrounded by so-called cover or sheath layers - are machine-welded and firmly joined together to form a single layer. The cutting layer of these chef's knives consists of Shiro-gami II, the so-called white paper steel, an unalloyed, non-stainless carbon steel. This steel is characterized by a very fine grain structure and is particularly tough. Blades forged from this steel can be hardened to a very high degree and ground extremely sharp. You need to know: In terms of its composition, Shiro-gami comes closest to the old Japanese sword steel - forging it in the first place requires knowledge of the most sophisticated forging techniques. The cover or sheath layers of our chef's knives are made of VG-10 steel, a high-quality stainless steel. The abbreviation VG-10 stands for "V-Gold 10". This softer, less tough steel is known for its excellent sharpness, edge retention and corrosion resistance. It can be ground very finely and is still comparatively easy to maintain.

Ajigataya knives achieve their outstanding sharpness when sharpened by hand on bench stones. Several sharpening passes are necessary and are carried out one after the other on whetstones with increasingly fine grit. The icing on the cake is the final polishing process, which optimizes the sharpness of the knife blades and also ensures particularly efficient cutting - the blades glide smoothly and without resistance through the food being cut. You can recognize this by the light surface of the blades, the Japanese word for this is Migaki. By the way: Did you know that the name "paper steel" actually comes from the fact that the different carbon steels were traditionally wrapped in different colored paper? White paper steel, as used here, is one of the highest qualities after blue paper steel (Ao-gami).