Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Wagyu and Kobe Beef, Explained

The words "wagyu" and "Kobe" get thrown around a lot, probably because of the dollar signs their refined perception evoke in the eyes of restaurateurs. Afterthe 2016 Inside Edition exposé blew the lid off the matter—letting everyone know that, at the time,there were only八restaurants selling certified Kobe beef in the whole United States- 消费者和厨师开始对这些术语变得更加保守。

Still, there’s a lot of confusion, because a lot of these terms can get super detailed and technical: Down to percentages of genetics, import laws, and the numbers and letters of the Japanese meat grading system. However, if you’re dropping $150 for a steak, you want to know what you’re getting into. We talked to several experts—a leading butcher, a restaurant general manager, a chef, and the leader of theAmerican Wagyu Association- 清除所有事实。

Let’s start with the most basic definition of wagyu, which is pretty well known at this point. The term literally translates to “Japanese cow.”

“WAmeans Japanese, andgyumeans cow,” Eiji Mori says. He’s currently the executive general manager of寿司roku在加利福尼亚州纽波特海滩（Newport Beach），这是全国少数餐馆为Bungo Beef提供的餐厅之一，这是一种进口的牛。莫里（Mori）居住在日本，还保持着与牛肉行业的联系，并参观了与著名的tsukiji鱼市场相当的牛肉。在那里，一只牛的售价为20,000美元或30,000美元。

并非日本或日本的牛肉都是牛。

Technically,Wagyu指的是四种特定日本品种中的任何一个: Japanese Black, Japanese Shorthorn, Japanese Polled, and Japanese Brown. (科比牛肉仅来自日本黑色, for example.) Any Japanese cattle breedsbesidesthese four (and they do exist) should not be called wagyu, Mori confirms.

科比是一种牛。There are many.

All Kobe is wagyu. Not all wagyu is Kobe.

Other types of wagyuinclude Matsusaka, Ohmi, and Bungo beef, all raised in different prefectures in Japan and subject to their own regulations.

宫崎骏县的宫崎骏牛肉是另一种牛的牛肉，实际上在日本的小牛评审活动中，实际上已排名高于科比。沃尔夫冈·帕克（Wolfgang Puck）也在今年的奥斯卡莫里（Mori）猜测，宫崎骏的营销团队可能与之有关。他说：“他们的营销团队真的非常好。”

However, for now, Kobe is still the most internationally recognized wagyu brand. It’s so successful, in fact, that NBA player Kobe Bryant起诉古城以获取牛肉的“他”名字。但是我们离题了。

在日本政府网站上阅读有关不同类型的Wagyu的更多信息here.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Well, for starters, that word means two different things in Japan and in the United States.

In Japan, wagyu refers to purebred cattle.

Per Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)Wagyu是指日本黑色，日本短角，日本民意测验或日本棕母牛的100％纯菌株。

在美国，大多数和牛都是半血。

Specifically, the USDA defines wagyu as beingat least46.875％的纯日语血液。

That’s according to George Owen, who’s Executive Director of the American Wagyu Association, the regulatory body for wagyu in the United States. He tellsvwin德赢ac米兰食品和葡萄酒vwin德赢ac米兰在一封电子邮件中，“在美国服役的大部分是F1或半血牛。USDA要求任何声称Wagyu的标签都必须来自一位纯种的注册父母[93.75-99.99％的日本血液]或Fullblood水平[100％日本血液]。有些餐馆也可以为100％的全蓝色和牛提供服务。由于100％的全血型动物数量有限，因此大多数用于繁殖目的而不是饮食。”

According to Owen, it can just be called "wagyu." In his words: “Wagyu beef is what the members and breeders of the American Wagyu Association produce.”

However, restaurantsshould指定他们何时提供输入的和牛与国内储牛或美国储牛，通常是他们会的，因为他们想吹牛，他们的产品被认为是更多优质的产品。进口的Wagyu必须通过比美国同行更严格的生产和分级标准，因此这种看法不一定是基本的。

If you see “A5” or “A4” on a menu, know that that’s a Japanese rating system and that beef is from Japan, Mori says.

Anytime you see the words "Miyazaki," "Bungo," "Matsusaka," or "Kobe" on a menu, also know that, by definition, they are imported from Japan. You can’t have American Kobe or American Miyazaki—that’s oxymoronic.

沃尔特·阿普尔鲍姆（Walter Apfelbaum）说：“确实没有比较。”这意味着日语版本更强。他一直是三十年的屠夫，目前在Prime + Propersteakhouse in Detroit, where he is executive butcher.

In theory, both full-blood American wagyu and its Japanese counterpart come from genetically pure pools, but wagyu “is about more than just genetics,” Apfelbaum stresses. “It’s what the cows are eating, how they’re raised, the kind of water they’re drinking, everything. Miyazaki cows, for example, are fed sake mash and are grazing on vegetation grown in volcanic soil, which is super fertile. Volcanic soil is where the best things on earth grow. It’s also close to the ocean so there are fish bones and minerals in the soil, which also enriches their diet.”

American wagyu also doesn’t benefit from as detailed a rating system as Japanese wagyu.

Because Japanese beef is so intensely marbled, both Japanese and American wagyu are literally off the charts on USDA’s marbling rating system.

This is kind of a problem, because that means that American wagyu doesn’t benefit from the same rating system that Japanese wagyu does. Japan has a scale called the Beef Marbling Standard, or BMS, which goes from 3 to 12. 12 being super, super marbled. Here’s a picture of a BMS 12 cut below, courtesy of Apfelbaum.

Per a Washington State University report，USDA Prime（根据Apfelbaum的说法，美国牛肉的最佳分类仅占美国牛肉的1.5％），在BMS 5处时钟。USDA大理石花纹得分量表本身本身在日本的BMS等效7中。Thus, it’s really hard to compare American wagyu to its Japanese original when they don’t even have the same universal rating system.

查看第7页的报告对于完整的BMS与USDA比较。

If you’re looking for that melt-in-your-mouth feel that makes wagyu so special—and if you value highly marbled meat—then American wagyu is the best beef produced in this country. Period.

欧文说,“The full-blood product can achieve a level of Prime that the majority of Americans have never seen. Both half-bloods and full-bloods produce a product so highly marbled that the USDA grading scale does not have a designated grade that accounts for the high level of marbling.” Owen being the Executive Director of the American Wagyu Association, one would forgive him for being biased, but his statement is objectively backed up by the Washington State University report.

简短答案：

No. It’s totally meaningless.

The long answer:

Much like Champagne, which has to be produced in France and meet a strict set of additional standards to be able to be sold as Champagne—notice the capital C—Kobe is a regional brand of beef from cows that must be born, raised, and slaughtered in Japan’s Hyōgo prefecture. It should always be capitalized, because it’s a registered trademark.

（从理论上讲，Wagyu也是日本的商标术语，因此是一个专有名词，但并非普遍大写。）

"American Kobe" is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist.

Going with the Champagne analogy, it’s like calling something "Spanish Champagne." It doesn’t make sense. If you see these words on a menu, run.

You could call something “American Kobe-style,” but that is still iffy.

尽管仍然具有误导性，但美国科比风格的牛肉将更加准确。正如美国农业部客观定义的那样，要么是美国储藏的东西。

Owen says that the AWA discourages the term “American Kobe.”

“Kobe is a name or term that Americans are familiar with, so that has been used in the past to help ‘identify’ the product to the average consumer,” he says. “We do not encourage the use of Kobe here in the US. Over the past several years the recognition of Wagyu in the US has grown and is familiar to most consumers, resulting in Kobe not being used as often. Kobe beef is produced from Wagyu lines of cattle in the region of Kobe in Japan.”

Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images

显然这是主观的。但是，根据日本国家竞争激烈的瓦格（Wagyu）的展览，该国最终的瓦格竞赛（Wagyu）竞赛没有。

As you may have heard, the honor of “best wagyu” goes to Miyazaki beef,which won first place in the beef category在2017年的华奥林匹克运动会上。这就是日本国家竞争性武尤（Wagyu）的俗语，这是每五年在该国举行的最高牛肉行业展览。为了获得这一荣誉，宫崎骏击败了神户和其他类型的牛。判断是基于大理石花纹和肉质的质地以及其他品质。Bungo Beef是一种鲜为人知的Wagyu，赢得了“冠军牛”类别的第一名，该类别评判了牛的体质，而Kagoshima Wagyu在整个比赛中赢得了第一名。

Apfelbaum还说不，科比不是最好的。

He prefers Miyazaki. “There’s no comparison in a side-by-side test,” he says. “The marbling is so much better.”

莫里（Mori）和我们与之交谈的另一位厨师大卫·沃尔佐格（David Walzog）在篱笆上。归根结底，他们俩实际上更喜欢lessmarbled meat. Apfelbaum prefers USDA Prime, and Walzog is a fan of Lobel’s, the New York-based supplier that sells American wagyu and USDA Prime.

“In Japan, you might be getting your wagyu served sliced, dipped in a light broth like shabu,” Walzog says. “That’s how you would eat it. An eight-ounce [wagyu] steak is going to be overload. Guests come in here and want 16 ounce Kobe ribeyes. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Even though Apfelbaum has the most expensive imported steaks at his fingertips, at the end of the day, he prefers USDA Prime. “When I eat a steak, I want to actually be able to eat a steak,” he says. “Miyazaki is so rich, I can have just a couple ounces of that, and I’m good. If you get the stuff with a BMS of 12 [the highest marbling grade], it’s so white it can look like a piece of lard.”