Japan Trip May '26

Earlier in May I went to Japan, visited a few suppliers and explored Tokyo and Osaka. I'm just now getting around to looking through my photos, and I wanted to share some of my trip with y'all below.

I've been to Japan before, but it was almost exactly 20 years ago, so I was excited to return representing Uptown Cutlery, and to visit the workshops I get some of my best knives from.

First stop was Tokyo, where I dealt with the jet lag, and visited with old friends of my father, Juta & Mieko. They were wonderful guides, and brought me to visit Kappabashi, the famous kitchenware street, and took me to some of their favorite restaurants.

 

 

One of the highlights in Tokyo was the Sword Museum, a incredible display of national treasures, some up to 800 years old! It was hard to take photos of them, but the details were remarkable.

 

Overall, I found Tokyo to be overwhelming, yet surprisingly easy to navigate and explore. I can imagine living there your whole life and not ever seeing or experiencing the whole city.

After a few days in Tokyo, I took the bullet train, Shinkansen, to Osaka. It was a quick 2 hour ride, and made even better by a couple of sushi-bento boxes I grabbed in the basement of the famous department store Daimaru before heading out: fresh conger eel, bluefin, salmon, and a croquette sandwich to top it off. (Only about $15! The food in Japan is not only extremely high quality, it is not expensive at all. Of course, part of that is the currently favorable exchange rate to the USD.)

 

Once, in Osaka, I took a local train south 20 minutes to Sakai, where I was specifically excited to visit with Kawamura Hamono, one of my first suppliers for the shop. Their brand is Sakai Kikumori, and they have producing kitchen knives for 100 years.

 

I started working with the folks at Kawamura Hamono over 12 years ago, when I was still working for Bernal Cutlery in San Francisco. During those years at Bernal I did ordering and participated in product development with them, and got to meet current president Toshio Kawamura, as well as his son, vice president Daisuke Kawamura when they visited us in S.F.

Opening Uptown Cutlery, Josh and Kelly of Bernal Cutlery graciously supported me in working with Kawamura Hamono, and they supply some of the most exquisite knives I have in the shop.

Sakai has a unique knife production system, with independent craftsman contracting their services to wholesale companies, such as Kawamura Hamono. The blades are forged in one shop, sharpened and polished in another, handles produced in another, and assembled, branded and packaged by the wholesaler. Often, the wholesaler keeps their sources secret, and unique and complicated relationships exist between all of the players in the industry.

Daisuke Kawamura was a gracious host during my visit to Sakai. We visited the sharpener Ajioka-san, who has been sharpening knives for over 50 years. He takes the blade blanks from the blacksmiths and does all the grinding, polished and finish sharpening. He's currently semi-retired, but oversees the quality control and teaches the younger sharpeners in his shop.

We also visited Yoshikazu Tanaka, one of Sakai's best blacksmiths. He works in his shop with his son Yoshihisa-san and another apprentice, hand forging each knife one by one. They forge in a very traditional manner and take their time, producing about 30 knives a day.

All in all, I had a wonderful trip and am excited about the connections that were made, and there will be some really great new knives in shop in the near future!

 

Ajioka san, showing me the ropes of hand sharpening an usuba. The edge is .1mm thick when properly sharpened.

 

Yoshikazu Tanaka working in his forge. After the initial forge, blades rest and cool slowly in straw, shown below. After that, they get cold hammered, shapes refined, and then to the final heat treatment, where the final blade harness is attained. Then, off to the sharpener!