Kai is leader in the production of high-quality damask knife series. Those damask knife series are praised and appreciated for beeing the sharpest knives in this category. Damask steel- also called damascene steel- has a long tradition and history. In the Middle Ages the armourers from Damascus were legendary. Thanks to a special technique of forging of hard and soft layers of steele the swords were caracterised by high stability and special hardness and sharpness.

The technique found its way to Japan, where was developped a high culture of the manufacturing of Samurai swords: The blades were made from up to thousand layers of folded hard and tough steel. Like this damask steel found also its way to the kitchens of Japan. Japanese cooking is traditionnally based on raw productes and needs for that reason sharp and long-lasting knives, who cut precisely fish as well as fine vegetables.

Because of the corrosion damask knives have for a long time only been rarely used in Europe. Traditionnal damask steel may corrode over the years and has to be maintained and oiled. It was the developpement of a new and noncorrosive damask steel who paved the way to Europe for the damascene knives.
 

The Kai professionnal knives are fabricated of this newly developped noncorrosive damask steel with 32 layers according to the traditionnal Japanese Samurai sword art of smithing. The inner layer consists of "VG MAX" steel, which is extremely corrosion-resistant and hard and leads to a blade which stays nearly permanetely sharp. The layering of two variably carbonic steels combines the advantages of hard and soft steel and leads like this to an incomparable and unexpected long-lasting sharpness and robustness.