Kuwahara Kaji Kobo・Ippon Ko-deba 120mm・Kurouchi stainless

Japanese knife makers are fond of saying you don't cut with the handle, but if you could then this would be the one you'd want. It's... sharp. Hiba is a lovely durable timber, not heavy, it feels substantial and grippy but what's really striking is the beautifully executed branding of the kanji characters for 'Nagasaki hocho Gunkanjima' - we've never seen looking quite so perfect and consistent. Very nicely done.

But they're right, you don't cut with the handle. We're here for the feel of the steel, a mid-weight stainless blade that's light, low maintenance, short and versatile. And black forged! Superfluous on stainless maybe but a handsome look. A kurouchi finish on stainless steel is always very consistent and pleasing to the eye.

Kayaki-cho knives are known as being 'nebari-zuyoi', a term that is sometimes translated as 'tenacious'. Persistent, perhaps. The sense of the word is a quality of malleability and stickiness, applied to high-grade cutlery steel it describes a robust, chip-resistant cutting edge.

Sharp, rust resistant, beautiful. Versatile. With an overall impression of comparative lightness for a deba of this length.

A note on branding. Ippon is used in martial arts to indicate the successful execution of a technique and an effective result with the win. It carries the sense of a single stroke - one-pass cutting is something we like - think of your next bout with chicken skins. Ippon ('一本') is also how you can count knives in the Japanese language: ippon, one knife. The One.