The ultimate shaved ice treat made from spring water

Beside the Arakawa River in the Chichibu Mountains in western Saitama Prefecture, nestled in a steep valley made beautiful with scenes of water, is a shop specializing in sweetened shaved ice called kakigori. The ice is made from only pure spring water, and the shop is called Asami Reizo. In summer, people line up for a chance to enjoy this tasty treat. Some come from as far away as Tokyo, about 100 kilometers away.

The ice formed the previous winter in a natural pond. The surface is cleaned in November, and in December water is channeled from a mountain stream, which has been used since 1930. When the water has frozen to at least 15 centimeters thick the ice is cut into pieces and stored in an icehouse, then used to make kakigori until the following September.

“We circulate the water to prevent it from freezing for a while. That way, when it does freeze, the ice is clear, free from cloudy blotches. But the job’s not easy—if we add too much water the pond might not freeze, and if it rains the stream could bring in bacteria, so then we’d have to stop the flow. We keep checking the condition of the ice and the weather, fine-tuning the process to make sure our ice is great for human consumption,” explains Asami Tetsuo, the 5th generation owner of the business. He is always on the lookout for changes in water quality.

“Housing projects, golf course construction and other land developments change the local environment, and this can harm water quality. When I was a kid, the streams had lots of freshwater crabs, but we don’t see them much anymore.”

The frozen spring water contains naturally occurring minerals, and when Asami shaves the ice to make kakigori the shavings are like soft snowflakes. The ice seems almost fluffy as it melts in the mouth. Asami’s kakigori is the very best, crafted with care from beginning to end to make the most of the blessings of nature. Connoisseurs hope the future will always be good to their favorite taste of purity and clarity.

Oarsmanship works wonders in the rapids

Cedar trees were once part of an industry for the village of Kitayama in Wakayama Prefecture. In the old days, the trees were cut into lengths of 4 meters, tied together to make rafts, then guided downstream over two or three days to the river mouth almost 150 kilometers away. The skills of those raftsmen, called ikadashi, live on today. The Kitayama River flows swift and narrow, with rapids and other places where danger lurks. This requires considerable skill on the part of the raftsmen, who have their oars ready to work either side.

Transporting logs this way ended in the 1960s. But for the last 35 years, the rafts have been heading downstream again during the summer, this time for tourists.

Working in the woods occupies the men in the winter, but 13 of them still do rafting. They range in age from 23 to 60. One of them, Yamamoto Masayuki, has been a rafter for 16 years. “Every day brings a different challenge, because the flow depends on recent weather conditions. That’s the most difficult thing for us. And then there’s the wind—if it’s strong it could force us up onto a rock, so we have to work our oars for all we’re worth.” With pride, Yamamoto says these Kitayama rafters are the only ones in Japan who can turn a raft a sharp 90 degrees in a swift current. Their skill and know-how are obvious as they use the force of the current to their advantage, giving their passengers a thrill while keeping them safe, deep in the mountains.

Yamamoto Masayuki leads the way, wielding his oar with true expertise in the swift current. (Photo: Kitayama Village)

Tofu made with water from a sacred mountain

Often washed by rains or covered in mist, Mount Oyama rises to a height of 1,252 meters in Kanagawa Prefecture. Local people have long believed that Oyama is home to gods who wield control over rice farming and the production of other blessings from the highlands and the sea. The pilgrim road still has almost 40 Japanese inns catering to travelers coming to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines on the mountain. Koide Tofu-ten is a tofu shop that supplies the inns with tofu for the shojin ryori vegetarian meals they serve. (Shojin ryori is featured in Buddhist ceremonies.)

To make the tofu, the shop takes its water from a spring that feeds the river running nearby. About a kilometer upstream, the spring is unaffected by rainwater, so its temperature is a constant 12 or 13 degrees Celsius. Much of the weight of a tofu block comes from the water used to make it, so taste depends a lot on water quality. The tofu made here on this sacred mountain has a silky texture and feels nice as it slips smoothly down the throat.

Kato Takayoshi, the 4th generation owner in a line stretching back to 1882, says, “The taste would suffer if we dammed the water up. We use only flowing water. We couldn’t get this quality from some other method or source. If a pipe breaks somewhere, we’ll go to fix it even in the middle of the night.”