Helen's Asian Kitchen Chinese Chef Knife Vegetable Cleaver, Japanese Carbon Steel, 8-Inch Blade

This is NOT a low quality knife and in a number of ways is worth much more than is currently being asked for, 04/2025. Its blade is forged, not stamped, and is made of Japanese high carbon steel which is said to be among the finest kitchen knife steels in the world, which can be sharpened to a razor edge and can hold such an edge for slicing boneless meats, veggies, and through the thinnest of fish bones but this knife is not a bone breaking butchers cleaver. Notice the nearly rectangular shape of this knife's blade which can provide considerable usefulness as where one hand would grip a knife to then push and pull the knife forwards and backwards while the other hand would rest its knuckles on the side of the big blade and use its fingertips to accurately and quickly move and guide food to be sliced. Try that with a Western chef knife, yes, the Chinese developed a high speed, high volume chopper before there was electricity to power one. And you likely would need a special knife stand to hold and store this knife as most Western knife stands are not designed to hold Chinese chef knives, but Amazon offers a nice one of which I have an earlier version, very nice, works well: Cleaver Stand | 8.25-inch wood vegetable cleaver knife storage block (Teak, 2mm).

Choosing a knife is a personal choice. Each of us prefers something a little different. This cleaver didn’t work out for me, it seemed too lightweight and the handle didn’t feel secure as some other cleavers. The packaging made it feel like something you’d find in the Kohl’s housewares department. That was a turn off. A great cleaver is a rustic well made knife that is weighted to cut without much effort. This was not heavy in the correct places.

Was absolutely amazed, how well the cup and edge me and my wife run a food truck and knives are very important to us. This is a quality kitchen tool.

Bought this knife for my GF, have been working on convincing her that it is really an essential part of a good kitchen knife collection. I own the old Joyce Chen branded version of this Chinese knife. This one seems to be similar -- good heavy blade made from good quality Japanese steel. The handle is hardwood, maybe walnut. It needed a couple coats of mineral oil/wax wood preservative, I thought. Reasonably ergonomic design == feels very comfortable to me, since it is so similar to mine.Oh, don't put this in your dishwasher! Wash by hand and dry carefully.

Cuts everything with ease nice wait really like it so much

I bought this knife to practice sharpening with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised to really like the way it cut - that was until I tried to cut through a dense sweet potato. I pressed down hard and realized I cut my hand on the *top* of the knife. None of the edges on the top or sides were remotely beveled off but felt like the didn't do anything after they punched it out. It's common to grip the knife with part of your hand on the top of the blade so this is a pretty serious design flaw. I'm giving it two stars because I was able to use my whetstones to smooth the non-cutting edges and then it really wasn't so bad but you can buy knives where you don't need to do that.

Holds a sharp edge after using a steel each time. Carbon steel is the key to holding a razor sharp edge.

A Masterpiece.. Most Chinese Chefs use this type of professional vegi cleaver knife. Don't be fooled by its price. It is an excellent knife. I strongly recommend. A++++