Hatsukokoro Hayabusa ZDP-189 Santoku 180mm

The gyuto came to Japan with the beef-eating culture of the Meiji era, and that is where its name comes from. Tojiro says it is used for all kinds of cooking, which is why it is also called the chef's knife.

The santoku is a household knife that combines the good points of the nakiri and the gyuto. Tojiro describes it as all-purpose, from vegetables to meat and fish, double-bevel and built on the same construction as a Western knife.

Choose a gyuto if you want more length and reach. Choose a santoku if you want a shorter all-purpose knife. Tojiro's own size figures: gyuto 150 to 210mm for household use and up to 360mm for professional use, santoku 165 to 170mm for household use.

Match the shape to your stroke. Rock chopping keeps the tip on the board and rolls the curved belly through the food, so a gyuto or a Western chef's knife suits it, and Japanese knives rock fine as long as you rock gently.

Up-and-down chopping, the Chinese style, wants a straight run of edge, so a nakiri, usuba, santoku or bunka suits it better; a curved edge chopped straight down easily leaves pieces joined. Neither shape is better; it depends on how you cut.

A Japanese dictionary explains the name of the santoku (三徳包丁) as coming from the three things it handles: meat, fish and vegetables. The same dictionary entry points from the santoku to the bunka (文化包丁), treating the two as one knife.

One Japanese knife maker guide distinguishes the two by the tip. It says that in the Showa era the bunka was made with its tip cut at an angle, and the santoku came after it by rounding that tip.

ZDP-189 is a powder metallurgy steel. Proterial lists the carbon at 3.00% and the chromium at 20.00%, and does not list the other elements. Proterial gives a hardening hardness of over 65 HRC.

Knife Steel Nerds' testing puts roughly 30% of the steel as carbide. In Knife Steel Nerds' CATRA test it scored 162% against 440C, where 440C is 100%, but it stayed below S90V, which Larrin Thomas attributes to chromium carbides adding less to edge retention than vanadium carbides. In Knife Steel Nerds' water-spray test the steel rusted, and Larrin Thomas judged that it does not qualify as stainless. He notes that Hitachi's own corrosion data looked better than his result.

It suits a cook who already sharpens on stones and treats knives gently. We would not make it your first Japanese knife. Our SG2 vs ZDP-189 page has the full comparison.

On Proterial's own figures, ZDP-189 carries 3.00% carbon and 20.00% chromium, with the molybdenum, tungsten, vanadium and cobalt figures kept closed.

Proterial describes it as a stainless blade steel made by a powder metallurgy process, lists its hardening hardness as over 65 HRC, and gives it for custom knives and high-quality cutlery tools.

Hatsukokoro (初心) is a brand, not a forge. H&K, a company founded in 2013 and based in Amagasaki, Hyogo, created it in 2019.

H&K names the producer for some lines, for example Shinkiro by Takahiro Nihei in Fukushima, Ginyou by Yoshihiro Yauji in Echizen and Kurosagi by Motokyuichi Hamono in Nagasaki, and keeps others confidential. Some knives we stock carry the maker in the title, such as Hatsukokoro x Yoshikane SKD Nashiji.

The name comes from the Japanese proverb 初心忘るべからず, which means don't forget your original intention. The company read it gently as hatsukokoro rather than shoshin.

H&K created the brand in 2019, six years after the company was founded, and chose the name for its knife line.

Pick by how much care you want to give. The carbon lines, Blue 1, Blue 2 and AS kurouchi, need drying and a little oil after use. The SG2, HAP40, Ginsan and VG10 lines are low maintenance, so they suit a busy kitchen or someone who just wants to cook.

Neither is better; it depends on your routine. If you will dry and oil the blade after each use, a carbon line can suit you, and if you want the least fuss, a stainless line is the easier choice.