Kyocera Ceramics 2pc Gift Set- White

UPDATE: Long term update. I finally chipped the blade today which I think is probably inevitable but it did take me 3 years of regular use. I bought a new set rather than use a chipped blade because I'm afraid I might chip off another piece now that the blade isn't 100% straight I may not notice and could end up with a chip in my food (yikes). It was really my own fault, I dropped a pretty heavy glass bottle on it. Obviously you can't chip a metal blade so that is a drawback of ceramic. However, this blade has remained razor sharp through 3 years of fairly heavy use. For me that's worth the cost even if I have to replace it when I break it (in this case after three years, next time hopefully even longer!) Original review: I cut up a LOT of fruits and vegetables that I feed into this juicer Omega VRT350 Heavy Duty Dual-Stage Vertical Single Auger Low Speed Juicer. So it was really important to me to have a knife that doesn't need to be honed all the time. I wanted something that would start sharp and stay sharp without a lot of maintenance. When I first got the knife I washed it and cut up a pineapple. My first cut was to take off the top and honestly my first words were "holy s***". It slid through the pineapple with almost no pressure at all. I read almost all the comments before I bought this set. I want to address a few of the more common comments. First, anyone buying this set needs to understand that material physics go like this, the harder something is the more brittle it is. Ceramic blades are extremely hard and thus must be extremely brittle. So yes, you have to be careful with this set but that is not Kyocera's fault it is just the way that materials work. For something to be both very hard and not brittle it would be Adamantium and that only exists in comic books. So the brittle nature of the blade is just the way it is. Accept that up front and you'll be much happier with this blade. Next, I'm not sure if they recently upgraded the handle but I'm having no trouble with it even when it is wet. The handle has a very lightly textured pattern to it and it gives me plenty of grip. I think if the handle it not providing enough grip then you are trying to cut something you should not be cutting with this blade. For people who have said the blade isn't sharp I think they may have gotten a badly honed blade. As I examined the edge very closely I noted that the way it was sharpened suggests to me that it was done by hand. What I mean is that the honed part did not have a uniform thickness across the entire knife blade. So it seems possible that now and then the factory honing might not be done quite right. I recall one review from someone who had trouble cutting celery and another who had trouble cutting tomatoes. If that is the case they should send the knife back because if it is honed correctly it will go through a tomato like butter (mine does). For people who have the white blade I would not be too concerned about staining. I've used the pairing knife to pit cherries (not prying! just slicing around the pit) and there is no hint of staining on the blade. And anyone who worked with a lot of fruits and vegetables knows that cherries are one of the most staining fruits around. Overall I think anyone buying this set needs to be aware that a ceramic blade is a specialized tool for a specific task. It is a great addition to the toolkit if you are slicing a lot of fruits and vegetables and don't want to have to hone your blades after every few uses.