Gesshin 8000 Ceramic Stone

We are very excited to bring you knives from Ashi Hamono. Ashi Hamono produces their knives entirely in-house. From the blade to the handle, they do it all. Their knives are very well finished, beautiful to look at, and have very good geometry. When you hold these knives in your hand, you can really see and feel the attention to detail that Ashi gives to every knife.

Ashi refers to this set as the “With Mother” set. They designed these knives to be very unintimidating and easy to use. Ashi hopes to encourage families to cook together in the home and hopes that this set will inspire people to do so. The 130mm and 170mm sized knives are very comfortable sizes for many home cooks. The shape of the blade is similar to the santoku knives that have become so popular recently. This set can be great for home cooks looking for easy to use and unintimidating knives, or for pros looking for a few comfortable line knives for cramped quarters. Don’t let the name of the set throw you off… these are high-performance knives for home cooks and pros alike. These knives are hardened to 58 HRC.

For many years we've had customers ask us about carving sets.  Especially around Thanksgiving, it seems everyone is looking for a set like this.  We've always looked around during our annual trips to Japan, but the concept of a carving set is not such a big part of Japanese culture.  This year, we finally found a few sets while visiting Seki.  Of course, we immediately picked them up and brought them back before the holidays.  The set includes a stainless carving knife and a carving fork.  They have a sleek and stylish curved design and come very sharp and ready to go (we are sharpening them before they leave the store). We hope you enjoy this set.

This set is discounted 20%. The Gesshin Stainless Wa-Series are exclusive for Japanese Knife Imports. We designed these from a sketch on paper all the way through to the final product. The steel is AUS-8 at about 58-59 HRC, so they will sharpen easily and have very good toughness (resistance to chipping). They are also relatively thin behind the edge, so they will move through food pretty easily, with very little wedging. The neck of the knives is a bit longer, helping to make the pinch grip a bit more comfortable. The handles are American cherry in an oval shape, with an inner copper ring for stability over time.  They also come with a ho wood sayas, which feature a  pin attached by a string to help prevent loss.

We hope these knives serve you well.  We think they will make great first Japanese knives, are good workhorses for home cooks and professionals alike, and will provide a very nice balance of cutting performance with ease of use and care.

* These knives are sharpened prior to shipping.

The Gesshin™ 1000 Grit Extra Large Sharpening Stone is a great Nakato (middle stone).  Like this rest of the Gesshin™ stones, I have been testing this one for quite some time now.  This stone is a new addition to our lineup. As a soaking stone, it has great feedback, cuts fast, and works well on a variety of steels. Its a medium hardness stone that can work up mud pretty easily. Being that it is not a super hard stone, it does dish while in use, which is part of the reason we offer this in the extra large size. This extra large size makes it nice for professional kitchens, where many people use the same stone. Likewise, some home cooks and professional sharpeners may prefer the larger working surface area. Stones this size tend to last for a very long time.  This stone should be soaked for about 10 minutes before use.  It can be stored in water with no problems.  If you do leave your stone in water, please change the water regularly.  When drying out this stone or any others, do so out of the sunlight in a well-ventilated area.