[a record of emotion] Bamboo cutlery "Ouchi Kogei"/Oita prefecture

went to Ouchi Kogei which makes bamboo chopsticks in Hita basin in Oita prefecture. Since many bamboos are harvested in the warm Kyushu region, bamboo crafts are performed in various places. Among them, Oita Prefecture has the largest production of madake in Japan, and using its abundant ingredients, bamboo baskets, bamboo baskets, chopsticks, cutlery and many other bamboo crafts have developed.
At Ouchi Kogei that I visited this time, mainly bamboo chopsticks, cutlery such as spoons, forks and butter knives are made, and all of them are hand-carved by craftsmen.
Of course, the coloring and finishing are done by hand one by one, and the production is done by hand consistently.

▲They are carved one by one by craftsmen.

Ouchi Kogei's products are often featured in magazines and on TV, and many fans have been using them for 10 years.
Once you use it, most people become repeat customers. The thin tip of chopsticks that pursues ease of use is also recommended for women.

▲The thin tip of the chopsticks, which can be expressed only with bamboo chopsticks, is easy to grasp even small food, and there are many repeat customers.

> When asked why he was particular about handmade, Ouchi replied, "You can't do it if it's not handmade.". If you want to make chopsticks that are thin and easy to eat, you need to adjust the size of the chopsticks to be smaller than 0.2 mm according to the fiber of the bamboo, so you can't do it by machine.

▲We use various thick and thin bamboo depending on the product.

In the Hita area, there were a few workshops that made chopsticks with machines until a few years ago, but cheap machine-made products couldn't compete with Chinese products and are no longer available. Ouchi's "I'm glad I kept making it." bamboo chopsticks were once overshadowed by mechanical and Chinese products, but today, Japanese and handmade chopsticks are once again becoming popular.

Ouchi Kougei
https://www.realjapanglobal.com/collections/ouchi-kougei