A Japanese knife as a perfect gift

February 11, 2023

Be Sharp

How many times have we been in doubt about the right gift for a loved one? Not anymore!

A knife is a gift that, unlike other transient things, will be remembered forever because it will serve forever. When you give someone a Japanese knife as a gift, they will remember you every time they use it and will use it with even greater enjoyment. Here are some guidelines that should be followed as a guide for buying this type of gift.

What shape should I give?

According to past experience, if you are not sure that your loved one needs a certain type of knife, it is best to go for the most universal knife option. First of all, the forms Gyuto , Santoku or Bunka are meant here. You can't go wrong with them because there isn't a gastro enthusiast who wouldn't like to have one more of them in their collection.

Knife dimension

Let's consider the situation where we have two users, one of average build, 180cm tall, and the other extremely tall, 210cm tall. If both users were to use a Santoku knife with a blade length of 170mm, one of them would have the case that the knife is simply not proportionate to his height. Can you guess which one? Of course, for users 210 cm tall.

A good guideline for finding the right size is that the standard knife size fits a person of standard build. The standard size of the Santoku knife is 170mm and it will perfectly suit a person of standard build. Take a look at the list of standard sizes of Japanese knives, and according to it, you can unerringly judge which dimension is perfect for the lucky owner of your next gift:

Santoku - standard size 170mm
Gyuto - standard size 210mm
Bunka - standard size 180mm
Petty - standard size 120mm
Sujihiki/slicer - standard size 240mm
Yanagiba - standard size 240mm
Thickness - standard dimension 160mm

Steel selection

All the steels used to make knives in Japan are of exceptional quality.

However, you should avoid giving away a knife that can cause difficulties for the end user. Here, we primarily mean whether the knife is made of carbon , that is, rusting steel, which most people do not know how to maintain or simply do not like.

An effective way to avoid this is to buy a stainless steel knife. We live in a time when steel technology allows us to have that super-hard structure in stainless knives, such as those made of VG10 , SG2 or Ginsan steel, which we all strive for and which gives a perfect long-lasting sharpness. So the right step would be to choose one of these steels.

Budget

As the price is certainly one of the factors during any purchase, it will be the case here as well. Although we don't skimp on our loved ones, sometimes we are not able to buy them the most expensive thing from the store.

Don't worry, there is a solution for that too. Usually, people buy themselves larger, more versatile knives, and somehow always avoid buying themselves the smaller Petty knife that is absolutely necessary. That's where you perform. Petty knives are generally cheaper due to the less steel used, and they are an equally high-quality and luxurious gift.

Belief

Although in the culture of the Far East it is not recommended to give a blade as a gift because of the connection with cutting off good relations, they too could not resist the perfection of such a gift, so they devised a "trick" that allows them to gift knives without problems.

Just ask for one coin from the person receiving the gift and in the eyes of the strict superstitious spirits it will be a fair exchange.