Kitchen tile is the surface that takes the actual abuse of cooking, grease splatter behind the stove, tomato sauce that somehow ends up two feet from the pot, a dropped cast iron pan that will chip anything soft. It covers the wall between counter and cabinet, or the whole floor, and it has to look decent while doing a job that no paint finish could survive more than a year.
I have put this tile in rented kitchens with a landlord breathing down my neck about security deposits, and I have put it in houses built around 1900 where the walls were never square to begin with. It works in both, which is more than I can say for most materials. A small apartment kitchen with no natural light wants something pale and a bit reflective to bounce what light there is around, while a big farmhouse kitchen with a window over the sink can take a darker, more textured tile without feeling like a cave. If you are starting from nothing, go plain and light first, a simple white or cream in a basic square or subway shape. You can build character around a quiet backdrop with rugs and open shelving and all the other things you will inevitably collect, but you cannot undo a busy, trendy tile once it is grouted into a wall you are stuck looking at for the next decade.
Cheap tile shows its cheapness fast, usually within the first winter, when the glaze starts crazing in a way that traps grease and never quite comes clean no matter how hard you scrub. A good glazed ceramic or porcelain tile ages the opposite way, it gets a faint softness to the surface over years of wiping that makes it look settled rather than worn out, the way an old sink gets friendlier looking the longer it has been used. Reseal grout lines every couple of years, wipe up anything acidic before it sits, and avoid anything abrasive on the glaze itself, a soft cloth and a mild dish soap solution handles ninety percent of kitchen mess just fine.
The day it arrives, check every box, not just the top one, for chips along the edges and consistent color across the batch, because dye lots vary more than anyone tells you and a mismatched run will show up the moment the light hits it at an angle. Check the backs for lippage warnings if your installer is working on an older, less level wall, which in my experience is most walls worth bothering with.
Wipe spills while they are still wet, grease sets into grout far faster than it comes back out.
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