Miyako Ceramic Knives are the latest additions to my collection and my proudest discovery yet. Why? Simply for their 5 star quality at affordable prices.

DETAILS

Miyako Ceramics offer a good selection of ceramic knives. The decision on which ceramic knife to buy was a little difficult. Give a woman too many choices and she will never decide! 😛 I ended up purchasing the gift set directly on their website at www.miyakoceramics.com. The set included a 3 inch paring knife, a 5 inch slicing knife and a 6 inch chef’s knife for $74.99. This was a great deal considering I paid more for my 6 inch Kyocera.

The knives came in a handsome black box with foam insert. The packaging looks more like a gift box and certainly not something I would throw in the trash bin. If I didn’t already have a knife block, I would certainly use the box to store the knives.

Upon opening the box, the first thing to catch my eye were the shiny blades. They’re beautiful! There is a very polished, glossy finish to it with a reflective sheen. This gave the knives a stunning appearance, something I have not seen before in the ceramic knife industry.

The handles on these ceramic knives have a simple ergonomic design, with dips and curves in all the right places. What really caught my attention was the feel of the handle. It has a soft, velvety feel to it. The handle is so comfortable that it seems to disappear in my hands.

PERFORMANCE

With all the oohhs and aahhs of its appearance, I was hoping it wasn’t just another pretty face in the ceramic knife market. I immediately put these knives through daily kitchen duty. Each knife in the 3 piece set had its fair share of work and each one performed exceptionally well. The sharpness of the ceramic knives was quite impressive. It’s on par with my Kyocera’s and sharper than every other ceramic knife I have in my collection. It easily handled everything I tried to cut with it. After 45 days of almost daily use, it has still retained its original sharpness.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Miyako Ceramics’ line of knives is one of the best value you’ll find in this market. They are skimpy on price but not skimpy on quality. It’s obvious that there was a lot of attention put into every small detail of the knives. The glossy blade, soft ergonomic handle and razor edge all add up to a fine piece of cutlery.

While I bought the knife set for its value, I expected nothing more than mediocre ceramic knives. Lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised to have found a winner. I highly recommend these ceramic knives for anyone looking for a great set of knives that won’t break the bank.

IKEA has released its version of the ceramic knife. They offer a 2 knife gift set retailed at $39.99. Not a bad price for 2 large ceramic knives. Does it live up to high standards? Or is this a typical mass produced IKEA product? We’ve review them here.

DETAILS

Blade material: Zirconium-Oxide
Handle Material: ABS plastic
Size: 5 inch vegetable knife & 6 inch Japanese kitchen knife
Origin: China
Cleaning & Care: Hand wash with mild dish soap

PERFORMANCE

The edge of the knife appeared to be well honed. The blade was sharp out of the box and had a nice feel to them. It sliced through food with relative ease. These knives cut as clean as the Kobe ceramic knife we reviewed, but nothing close to how sharp we expect a ceramic knife to be.

The handles are made of an ABS plastic. They felt very hard in the hand, with not much give. The design and shape of the handles felt a bit awkward, putting the arm and wrist in a less than normal position. IKEA seemed to design the handles for appearance rather than comfort. We are not sure if the ridges in the handle are a design element, or if they are for added grip. They didn’t help much in terms of the grip.

DURABILITY

We used this set of knives exclusively for 6 weeks. The handle held up well to daily use and washing. There were no signs of wear. The blade and handle remained firmly attached to each other.

The blade was a different story. The 5 inch white ceramic knife held up after daily use. We could tell it was getting dull, but it was still sharp and did not require any sharpening. We did notice that there were already 4 small chips on the edge of the blade!

The 6 inch Japanese knife seemed to dull within a week. We visually inspected the knife and found it had 12 tiny chips on the blade! We treated these knife with the same care we treat all of our ceramic knives. These particular knifes were a lot more susceptible to chipping than any other ceramic knife we have used. We will attempt to return this one for a replacement and we will rerun our test.

THE FINAL VERDICT

This ceramic knife set by IKEA is well priced. The white blade held up to daily use without any immediate problems but the fact that we already had 4 chips on the edge in such a short amount of time makes me worry. The black blade seemed to have problems almost too soon. It would be hard to recommend these knives to anyone due to the amount of problems we saw on both knives. We can accept the fact that we may have simply received a bad set of ceramic knives. We are going to attempt to exchange these for a new set. Stay tuned, we will post an update.

The Yoshi Blade is a ceramic knife that can be found on TV and many local stores around town. Their commercial makes many of the claims that hold true to ceramic knives (sharpness, durability, sanitary, etc). They are a new comer in the ceramic knife industry, and of course, we had to get our hands on one.

DETAILS

We purchased our set online for $19.99. The set came with a 5 inch ceramic knife and a ceramic peeler. It didn’t seem like a bad price, but up checkout, we quickly realized that there was a $9.99 shipping and handling charge, ouch… The knife featured a plastic handle with a 5 inch ceramic blade, and a peeler that felt like it was made of similar materials.

Upon initial inspection, the knife and peeler felt like typical ceramic knives. The blade felt sharp and the handle felt firmly secured to the blade. We did notice the edges of the peeler and knife had stray plastic hanging off it. We put the peeler on the white ceramic knife to make it more visible in the photo, click on it for a close up. It seemed like the factory didn’t clean the edges well after they were made. Also, although the handle is smooth, there are several indentations in it. Both are signs of a highly mass produced product with low quality assurance.

PERFORMANCE

The Yoshi Blade felt strange in the hand. The handle is tall and narrow which made it hard to get a firm grip on. The sharpness of the blade was average at best, not the most sharp knife we have used, but also not the dullest either. It didn’t have much problem cutting through most of the food we threw at it, but we tried to skin a pineapple the same way they did in the commercial, and it did not work as well as it looked.

There is a serious design flaw that we could not over look. The handle of the knife extends past the bottom of the blade. This caused two problems during normal cutting. 1) Only the front part of the blade can ever make contact with the cutting board. 2) When holding the knife in a normal cutting position, the unusually wide handle causes your knuckles to hit the cutting board. Notice the space between the blade and the cutting board in the photo. It seems like the manufacturer didn’t take any of this into account when the knives were designed. This design flaw made the knife very difficult to use.

THE FINAL VERDICT

At $19.99, the Yoshi Blade is a good bargain. After shipping and handling, the price was closer to $30 which made it about average price. The blade was was average sharpness for a ceramic knife. Other than the design flaw in the handle, the knife is a typical ceramic knife on the market. At $20 MSRP, you’ll get what you pay for.

The ceramic knife I tested, and ended up buying was the Kyocera Classic Series 6 inch model #KC-130-WH). The WH stands for ‘wooden handle’. There is a plastic handle version as well, but the wooden handle feels a lot better in build quality. I’ve always heard Kyocera was the leading manufacturer of this product, and after using it, I can see why. Here is my full review of this knife.

DETAILS

Blade material: Zirconium Oxide

Handle Material: Pakka Wood

Size: 6-in.

Weight: 8.8 ounces

Origin: Japan

Cleaning & Care: Hand wash with mild dish soap

PERFORMANCE

This Kyocera ceramic knife was one of the sharpest knives I’ve ever used. It is as sharp an any other metal knife I’ve owned, even right after it’s been professionally sharpened. The sharpness allowed me to slice and dice things very thinly and cleanly, a lot thinner than I could have with a metal knife.

At less than 9 ounces, the knife was very light weight, even with the wooden handle. The weight, along with it’s sharpness allowed me to do a lot of prep work without my arm getting tired. However, I found the weight didn’t give me the leverage I wanted when cutting some items, such as cabbage heads. Keeping in mind that this is a ceramic knife, I couldn’t use for everything.

Any chopping or de-boning I did had to be done with a traditional metal knife. That was sometimes a nuisance, but overall, not too much of a pain. I tested several of the claims that Kyocera puts on this knife. The knife did pass every test with flying colors. See my 30 Day Test for all the details. The one test the still amazes me is the apple test. Kyocera claims that due to its inert properties, and sharpness, fruits and veggies cut with their knives won’t turn brown as fast. I tried it with apples and sure enough, it passed. I hear lettuce is also a good test. I might have to make myself a salad tonight.

DURABILITY

After 30 days of daily use, I have to say, the knife is still razor sharp. It feels like the day I picked it up. Not dull, no rust and no stains. There is however there are a few tiny chips on the blade. Their website says this is normal and will not affect its performance.

THE FINAL VERDICT

The Kyocera Classic Series 6 inch KC130WH is a great knife. I would highly recommend it to anyone who already owns a decent chef’s knife. If you think a ceramic knife is all you need in the kitchen, you’ll soon find out otherwise. If you already have a chef’s knife, this Kyocera ceramic knife makes a great sidekick to your kitchen cutlery set. If you are looking for an all in one knife that will do everything, invest in a good chef’s knife first.

I found it online for $15 less than I bought it for, with free shipping and no sales tax. 🙁 I guess that’s what I get for impulse shopping. I still have no regrets, this is a great knife.

I was shopping at one of my local home supply stores and came across an interesting product. For $10, there was a Kobe Master (that is the Brand) ceramic paring knife and a ceramic peeler, and it was the last one! I thought it was a typo too so I quickly put the last one in my basket and proceeded to checkout. After the cashier rang up the set, it turned out it was a typo. It wasn’t $10 for the set, it was only $5!!! I thought to myself, what a deal and what a perfect opportunity for a review.

DETAILS

This Kobe Master ceramic knife set didn’t include any details or technical specs to it. As you can see from the picture, the packaging only said the brand name. I’ll fill this section with my own specs, based on what I see with the knife and peeler.

One the outside, the set looks like a very cheap generic brand. The set was packaged in tight heavy plastic, the kind that is very hard to open without slicing your hand apart. After taking out the knife and peeler (and almost a finger), I found the knife and peeler wasn’t as cheaply made as I was expecting.

The rubbery handles on both the ceramic knife and the ceramic peeler had a nice grip to it. Both the ceramic knife and the ceramic peeler were extremely lightweight. I could hardly tell I was holding it. The handles had a nice ergonomic shape to it.

The blade it’s self looked like the Kyocera ceramic blades expect it lacked the iridescent of Kyocera blades. The edges were pretty sharp, although not quite as sharp as the Kyocera knives. The peeler had a very similar blade as the knife, also very sharp but not any sharper than any brand new peeler I’ve ever had.

PERFORMANCE

I used this set to peel and mangoes as fast as I could, just to check if the knife or peeler would hold me back any. If you haven’t had mangoes before, they have a thicker skin that is sometimes difficult to peel with a peeler. To my surprise, the peeler worked very well! The blade isn’t as sharp as my Miyako or Kyocera ceramic knives, but it performed better than any peeler I have in my kitchen drawers. The ceramic knife it came with was also a pleasant surprise. It was sharp enough to rip apart the mangoes with ease.

This ceramic set, to my surprise, performed quite well together. The ceramic peeler and ceramic knife were both sharp enough to do the task I presented it. Only time will tell if this knife set actually keeps it’s sharp edge as long as a higher quality ceramic knife can. I’ll write an update to this post after a few months of heavy use. Stay tuned for the news.

THE FINAL VERDICT

At $10 retail (I actually paid $5), this is a set I can recommend buying. It does have some issues with it and it’s not the highest quality knife you’ll find, but it is an excellent bargain, even if you have to pay the full $10.

Ceramic Life knives (say that 10 times fast) are a relatively new player in the industry. These are Korean made knives that are distributed throughout the U.S at retail stores. Upon receiving my sample knives in the mail, I was in a rush to try give them a test (what a loser I am… what can I say, I love to use ceramic knives!).

My initial thought was that the packaging seems quite flimsy, thin cardboard inside a thin plastic box. The packaging makes no difference to me, but it often times will reveal a bit about the product’s quality, we’ll soon find out right?

DETAILS

Blade material: Zirconium Oxide
Handle Material: Polypropylene Resin
Size: 6.7-in.
Weight: 9 ounces
Origin: Korea
Cleaning & Care: Hand wash with mild dish soap

Price:

6.7 inch chef’s knife: $40
4.5 inch paring knife : $25

PERFORMANCE

Upon initial use, this knife seemed to perform very similar to most brands on the market. The balance of the knife was almost spot on. The weight felt well distributed allowing for better control of the knife.

The handle was comfortable to grip. The handle has an ever so slight ergonomic curve to it. Not perfectly straight, but not overly curved. After cutting about a dozen tomatoes and potatoes, fatigue did not set in at all. I guess we are having stew for dinner tonight!

The blade felt very sharp to the touch but not quite as sharp we would like. Its cutting performance rivaled most decent metal knives we’ve used, but not nearly the razor edge found on higher end ceramic knives. The sides of the blade aren’t very smooth. We found that food stuck to the sides a lot more frequently.

DURABILITY

After 4 months of almost daily use of this knife, it has stood up pretty well. The blade is still close to its orginal sharpness. After inspecting the edge very closely, I see no chips on the blade at all. The handle has held up well and it still performs like it just came out of the box.

THE FINAL VERDICT

The Ceramic Life chef’s knife is an admirable first attempt in the ceramic knife industry. The knife is well made and performs well for its price. The blade kept its edge through rigorous use, but out of the box, the edge isn’t honed quite so well. At about $40, this knife is a nice way to get your foot into the door. For any hard core ceramic knife user, I would stay away and get a higher end brand.