Yoshimi Kato Aogami Super Kurouchi Nakiri 165mm (6.5")

• Style: Nakiri Knife
• Length: 165mm (6.5")
• Weight: 6.07 oz
• Special Feature: Stainless Kurouchi / Carbon Steel Core, San Mai
• Blade Steel Type: Aogami (Blue) Super / AS
• Handle Material: Wenge Wood with Buffalo Horn Ferrule
• HRC: 64
• Bevel Angle Ratio: 50/50
• Cover: Not included

Yoshimi Kato knives are hand forged, ground, and finished in Takefu in Fukui, Japan by Yoshimi Kato, licensed as a certified craftsman. All Aogami super knives in this line are clad in mild stainless steel, which helps mitigate food reactivity. The alloying elements found in Aogami Super further reduce its reactivity compared to the simpler white and yellow steels. These knives are ideal for anyone who is enticed by the idea of carbon steel knives but is wary of the maintenance requirement.

All Yoshimi Kato knives have a rounded choil for a more comfortable grip, a nice distal taper with a thin tip for precision cuts and an excellent grind. We recommend thinning and treating the bevels on each side of the knife as you would a single bevel; sharpening them as you go to maintain the knife's geometry over time.

San-mai (lit. three sheets) is a style of manufacture common for Japanese knives. A more practical translation is "three layers", referring to the core hardened steel being jacketed with soft steel. These style of knives may seen being referred to as "clad" or "kasumi", which has some overlap with a similar style of manufacture called Ni-mai or "two layers". Ni-mai is commonly found in single bevel knives where the soft steel is only on one side of the knife with a small portion spilling over to the other side.

Yoshimi Kato knives are produced in Takefu knife village in Fukui Japan by a blacksmith collective headed by Yoshimi Kato, the son-in-law of Hiroshi Kato. Yoshimi Kato has stepped in to fill his father-in-law's shoes and has done so admirably, producing knives with a high level of attention to detail. Yoshimi Kato produces some of the most desirable carbon steel knives available in the United States today and we're excited to be carrying them.

Nakiri (lit. Vegetable cutting knife) is a double bevel variant of the traditional single-bevel Usuba. Its profile is quite flat, even when compared to the already-flat-profile of a Japanese Gyuto; this flatness lends itself well to push-cutting tasks since more of the knife will contact the board at one time. It is common for Nakiri to have some degree of curvature to the middle of the blade so that there is less risk of introducing recurve into the blade while sharpening and also to accommodate inconsistencies and low spots in a cutting board that may impact the knife's ability to make a full cut. As the name implies, a Nakiri is ideal for vegetables and any cutting tasks not requiring or heavily benefiting from having a sharp tip for precise work.