About Tsuboe
Tsuboe is a Japanese family workshop in Tsubame, Niigata Prefecture, that has worked metal for four generations – first as a file maker, today as a specialist in oroshigane, the Japanese grater. Tsubame-Sanjo is Japan's centre for metalware and cutlery, and it was here that Kotaro Kasahara began making files in 1907. Through specialised files for the building trade, the teeth of a file gradually became the teeth of a grater, and in 1993 Tsuboe began producing graters in stainless steel, copper, aluminium and titanium. The fourth generation, Shinji Kasahara, has led the workshop since 2010 and in 2021 was named a Niigata Ken-O Meister for his craftsmanship in honmetate.
Honmetate is the heart of a Tsuboe grater. Traditionally each tooth was raised one by one with a chisel, and rather than pressing the entire grating surface in a single stroke as industry does, Tsuboe developed – after hundreds of prototypes – its own NC machine that strikes one tooth at a time with the precision of the hand. The result is a sharp, irregular arrangement of teeth that grates without crushing – less resistance, longer life and noticeably better flavour and texture in whatever is grated. The workshop's motto: one strike, one tooth, one devotion.
From sheet to finished grater, every piece passes through twelve steps in the Tsubame workshop: blanking, flattening, tooth striking, forming, polishing, washing and laser marking, before every single grating surface is inspected under a loupe. The flagship Gokujo – "the supreme" – arrived in 2019 as a stainless steel grater with container and drainage basket, followed in 2021 by two small graters with teeth in eight directions, developed specifically for ginger and wasabi. The sister series SHIRO gathers simple accessories, and irogami is a colourful grater folded from a single piece of metal like origami.
