Norpro Stainless Steel Zester and Stripper

Norpro Stainless Steel Zester and StripperTerrible. Barely zests at all. I wish I could give it zero stars.I was very excited when I found this zester on Amazon because I have an old zester that looked identical to the photo of this one, that produces great zest and despite an issue with the handle (the top pulls out of the handle tube as you are zesting unless you hold it down) at least it was sharp and actually zests. Unlike some of the other zesters I have recently tried.When I received this Norpro zester I was dismayed to find that it is an "updated model" and is not as pictured! It doesn’t have the black bands that my old one does, which would be fine because that’s the reason why the top pulls out of the handle BUT when I tried to zest with it I discovered that the holes in the new one are not beveled they are just punched through the metal so they are not sharp at all and don’t actually zest! No matter how hard you press, you just get a couple of short pieces of zest. It would take forever to get a tsp of zest and little flecks of zest and lemon oil spray all over while you are zesting because of the amount of pressure you need to use.The zester I recieved was sold and shipped from Amazon direct not from a secondary seller and it was connected to a Norpro card, so there was no switcheroo by an unscrupulous seller, but the photo is not up to date.Check out my photos for some of the results of my testing. Remember the zester in actuality is a silver zester same shape as that pictured in this product listing, without the black bands. It is clearly marked Norpro however and it’s a piece of crap as you can see from the zest comparison photo.I tried to return it and Amazon refunded me and said keep it. But even though it was technically free, I’m throwing it in the trash. Not even sending it to Goodwill because I don’t want anyone else wasting their money on it. It is THAT bad!MY SEARCH FOR A ZESTER THAT (SHOCK HORROR) ACTUALLY ZESTS!!!I wanted to buy another zester because I use mine so much it is always in the dishwasher when I need it.I couldn’t find the same style as the old one that I have. I’ve had it for a number of years and it works amazingly well except for a small design flaw on the handle that I have been working around. I thought maybe in purchasing a superior version, my current one could be put on emergency standby. I thought it would be a simple process, but I was wrong.I have tested zesters that don’t zest at all, zesters that only produce horrible little wobbly looking, thin zest fragments, zesters that are hard to hold, zesters that produce great thin zest but don’t make good zest curls with the channel knife on the side, zesters that don’t have a channel knife at all etcThe journey has been so frustrating and disappointing, so I thought I should provide my zest research free of charge to assist you to make a good zester decision :)As for the 5 star reviews on some of these zesters that zest terribly, I have given a lot of thought to this and have come up with some reasons this could happen.Perhaps it is because a good zester is so hard to find that the people giving them a 5 star rating have never had the advantage of using a good zester?But, some of the zesters I tried could be considered “decorative only” as the holes are completely blunt, they don’t cut any zest AT ALL even with a lot of pressure, so they are completely useless. But they have good reviews. So either those particular reviews must be either fake, or by people who got it for free but never actually used it, or maybe the company started out with a good version and then cut corners and did the old switcheroo. This all makes me so mad. To date I have tried many zesters and have returned a few and kept a few and tossed a few in the trash. I am ranking them so you don’t get fooled by the good reviews on some of these, as I did.As a public service to all those hunting for a zester that zests, I have posted reviews on all of the ones I have tried so far and ranked them from best to worst. I still have a couple in my cart to try so keep checking back if you want the latest news.To read my other zester reviews navigate to my profile and scroll down my reviews to find them. Or go to my profile and click on my ideas list to see a link for each zester I have tested and reviewed. Please note some of the zesters in my Ideas List got 1 star from me. You can click on the link to be taken to the product page to read my review there. You can also “follow me” from my review page to be notified when I post another review. I review a lot of cookbooks and kitchen products and ingredients, so if you are interested in this review you may enjoy many of my other reviews also.If this has been helpful to you would you click the helpful button? I spend a lot of time on my reviews and get a huge kick out of seeing that it helped like-minded customers filter through all the crap out there :)