The Kakigori Encyclopedia | The Complete Guide to Japanese Shaved Ice

Compiled October 2026. Inline numbers in square brackets refer to the numbered bibliography in Section 23. Items that were seen only at second hand are labelled as such.

Part I. Core reference (Sections 1–23)

1. Introduction

Kakigori (かき氷, also written カキ氷) is the Japanese name for a dessert of ice shaved into fine flakes and flavoured with syrups, sweetened condensed milk, sweet bean paste or other toppings. Japan’s government English-language magazine Highlighting Japan calls it a “summer treat” with roots in the Heian court. It reports that the dessert reached the general public only in the Meiji period (1868–1912), when ice-making and ice-shaving machines spread [31].

Kakigori’s history has several distinct layers, and keeping them apart is the main aim of this reference:

1. Ice storage. Ice was stored in himuro (氷室, ice houses) by the ancient court. This is documented in the Nihon shoki, in excavated wooden tablets and in the Engishiki [4, 5, 6].
2. Heian literary references. A small number of texts mention shaved ice. The most famous is Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book), which lists 「削り氷にあまづら入れて」 (“shaved ice with amazura sweetener”) among “refined things” [1].
3. Meiji commercialisation. Commercial ice-water shops (氷水店) appeared in the 1860s–70s, supplied first by imported and Hakodate natural ice and later by machine ice [32, 72, 78].
4. Twentieth-century mass consumption. Mechanical shavers, festival stalls, syrups and packaged products made kakigori an everyday food [31, 81].
5. Recent premium kakigori. Since the 2010s, high-priced “gourmet” kakigori has spread, documented by trade and media sources [31, 99].
6. Related desserts abroad. Similar shaved-ice desserts exist outside Japan. Some have documented Japanese connections (Hawaii, Korea, Taiwan, plausibly the Philippines and Singapore); others are independent traditions (Sicilian granita, Mexican raspados, American snowballs) [19, 44, 45, 47, 83, 84, 94, 95].

A recurring caution: the earliest written reference to shaved ice is not evidence of the invention of kakigori. Yoshikai Naoto, a scholar of Heian literature, explicitly questions whether the Heian kezurihi should be treated as the root of modern kakigori [14].

2. Terminology

2.1 Japanese terms

• 削り氷 (kezurihi; historical kana けづりひ, modern けずりひ). “Shaved ice”, the Heian-period term. It is used in the Makura no sōshi and Eiga monogatari, and according to Yoshikai already in the Utsubo monogatari [2, 3, 14]. Manapedia’s edition glosses the reading as 削り氷(ひ), i.e. kezuri-hi [2].
• 削氷 (kezurihi). The same word in the 19th-century Hokuetsu seppu, where it names a heading of the book [7].
• 氷室 (himuro). An ice house or ice pit used to keep winter ice into summer [4, 5].
• 氷水 (kōrimizu) and 氷水店 (kōrimizu-ten). “Ice water” and “ice-water shop”, the usual Meiji-period terms for shops that sold shaved ice with sugar or syrup. The 1869 Yokohama shop of Machida Fusazō is described as a 氷水店 [72]. In Korea the cognate term 빙수 (bingsu, from 氷水) was adopted [44].
• かき氷 (kakigōri). The modern general term. Japanese Wikipedia connects the name to the verb 欠く/掻く and to the Kantō expression ぶっかき氷 [109]. No independent philological source for this etymology was found, so it is treated here as unverified.
• 氷菓 (hyōka). A legal and industrial category (“frozen confection”) under Japanese food standards and the industry classification. Packaged kakigori products are classed here [41, 76].
• 氷雪 (hyōsetsu). The legal category for ice used as food [40].

2.2 Related desserts outside Japan (definitions; see Section 16 for the comparison table)

• Hawaiian shave ice. Finely shaved ice with syrups, associated by journalists and historians with Japanese and Okinawan plantation labourers of the early 1900s. It is distinguished from the mainland snow cone, which uses crushed ice “pebbles” [83].
• Snow cone. Crushed (not shaved) ice with syrup in a paper cone [83]. American regional variants include the New Orleans sno-ball and the Baltimore snowball, both made from finely shaved ice and explicitly distinguished from snow cones by local historians [95, 96].
• Bingsu (빙수, 氷水). Korean shaved ice. Seoul Metropolitan Government’s magazine traces it to the early 20th century and Japanese influence [18, 44].
• Baobing / cuabing (刨冰 / 剉冰). Taiwanese shaved ice. Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture dates the eating of ice in Taiwan to the Japanese colonial period (日治時期) [45].
• Chinese shaved ice (mainland). Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture states in general terms that northern Chinese elites stored winter ice in cellars and broke it for summer use [45]. This reference did not locate primary Chinese sources on shaved-ice desserts, so mainland Chinese history is not covered in detail and remains unverified here.
• Halo-halo. Filipino shaved-ice dessert with mixed toppings. The historian Ambeth Ocampo argues for a Japanese pre-war origin via mongo-ya (mung-bean ice vendors) [84].
• Ice kachang / ais kacang. Singapore and Malay-world shaved ice with red beans and other toppings. The earliest form documented in a Singapore source is “ayer batu kachang” [19].
• Granita. Sicilian frozen preparation. Visit Sicily says it descends from medieval snow gathered by nivaroli and stored in neviere, later replaced by a frozen mixture of water, sugar and flavourings [47]. It is an independent tradition.
• Raspado. Mexican shaved ice with syrups, scraped from a block with a metal raspadora [94].

3. Origins

3.1 Ice houses in the Nihon shoki (legendary-chronology narrative)

The Nihon shoki (日本書紀, compiled 720) has an entry in the 62nd year of Emperor Nintoku [4, 13]. Prince Nukata no Ōnakatsuhiko (額田大中彦皇子), hunting at Tsuge (闘鶏), saw a structure in a field. The local chief 闘鷄稻置大山主 explained that it was an ice house:

「…啓之曰 氷室也 皇子曰 其藏如何 亦奚用焉 曰 掘土丈餘 以草蓋其上 敦敷茅荻 取氷以置其上 既經夏月而不泮 其用之 即當熱月 漬水酒以用也 皇子則將來其氷 獻于御所 天皇歡之 自是以後 毎當季冬 必藏氷 至于春分 始散氷也」 [4]

What the text says. The ice house is a pit “more than a jō” (丈, about 3 m) deep, covered with grass and thatch. Ice placed on it does not melt through the summer. In hot months the ice is used by “soaking it in water or sake” (漬水酒以用也). From then on ice was stored every winter and distributed from the spring equinox [4].

Interpretation. The passage describes ice for chilling drinks, not shaved ice as a dessert. Its date is a matter of the Nihon shoki’s traditional chronology. Some websites convert it to “AD 374”, but the reign dates of the early emperors are not regarded as reliable, and this reference does not adopt a calendar year [4]. Hosono notes that the historicity of the story is debated. However, excavated mokkan (wooden tablets) from the residence of Prince Nagaya confirm that a Tsuge ice house really existed in the early 8th century [13].

3.2 Archaeological confirmation: the Tsuge ice house tablets

A wooden tablet from the Nagaya-ō residence site in Heijō-kyō records 「都祁氷進始日」 (“day on which deliveries of Tsuge ice began”). The Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties database places Tsuge in 大和国山辺郡都介郷 and associates the tablets with ice deliveries around 和銅4年 (711) [6]. Nara Prefecture states that the 1988 excavation yielded about 60,000 tablets, including references to 「都祁氷室」 and the people who carried ice. It also notes that local residents have built a reconstructed ice house on the basis of these records [35]. Today’s 氷室神社 at Fukusumi holds a 献氷祭 on 1 July, “in connection with the historical fact that ice was presented on the first day of the sixth lunar month” (the prefecture’s wording) [35].

3.3 The state ice system in the Engishiki

The Engishiki (延喜式, completed 927 [15]) devotes book 40 to the 主水司 (Mondo no tsukasa, Bureau of Water and Ice; the reading follows Hosono [13]). The transcribed text specifies the following [5]:

• Ice was supplied to the court from the 1st day of the 4th month to the 30th day of the 9th month.
• Ice houses (氷室) are listed in Yamashiro (徳岡, 小野, 栗栖野, 土坂, 賢木原, 石前), in 大和国山邊郡都介, 河内国讃良, 近江国志賀 and 丹波国桑田 (池邊).
• The text gives 21 ice houses and 540 ice ponds (氷池).
• Rites were held for nineteen “ice-pond deities” (冰池神十九座).
• One da (駄, horse load) equalled eight ka (顆, blocks).

This is documented administrative evidence that ice was a managed court resource in the early 10th century.

3.4 Amazura (甘葛), the sweetener

The Pillow Book’s sweetener is amazura. Nara Women’s University (NWU) explains that 甘葛煎 (amazurasen) was a sweet syrup made by boiling down plant sap. The Engishiki (book 33) lists it as tribute from many provinces [15].

In 2016 an NWU project led by 山辺規子 reconstructed amazurasen from the sap of winter ivy (ツタ). Sap of about 13° Brix was boiled down to roughly one-tenth of its volume, reaching about 76° Brix. Producing about 100 cc took around 30 people a full day [16].

The botanical identity of amazura is not fully settled:

• NWU’s reconstruction used ivy sap [16].
• Highlighting Japan says only that amazura “may refer to ivy” [31].
• Translators render it as “liana syrup” (Morris) or simply “a sweet syrup” (McKinney) [88, 90].

3.5 The Makura no sōshi passage

The passage is in the section 「あてなるもの」 (“refined/elegant things”). It is numbered 第42段 in the editions used by n-koten and Manapedia; numbering differs between textual lines (see Section 20).

「あてなるもの。薄色に白襲の汗衫。かりのこ。削り氷にあまづら入れて、あたらしき金鋺に入れたる。水晶の数珠。藤の花。梅の花に雪の降りかかりたる。いみじううつくしきちごの、いちごなどくひたる。」 [1, 2]

Key words:

• 削り氷 (けづりひ): shaved ice.
• あまづら (甘葛): a plant-sap sweetener [1, 15].
• 金鋺 (かなまり): a metal bowl [2, 3].

n-koten’s modern Japanese translation reads 「削り氷に『あまづら』を入れて、新しい金属の椀に入れたもの」 (“shaved ice with amazura put in, placed in a new metal bowl”). Its note explains 甘葛 as vine sap boiled down [1].

Variant text. A study site for high-school classical Japanese gives the reading 「削氷のあまづらに入りて、新しき鋺に入りたる」. Its note on 鋺 says “metal bowl… probably of silver (銀製であろう)” [3]. The two readings differ in grammar (に入れて vs. のあまづらに入りて) and in the bowl’s character (金鋺 vs. 鋺). The wording therefore depends on which manuscript line (伝本) an edition follows. Hosono notes that he quotes the 能因本 line [13].

English translations compared:

Interpretation. The passage shows that sweetened shaved ice existed in the late-10th/early-11th-century court as an item of aesthetic refinement. It describes no technique, quantity or recipe.

3.6 Earlier and parallel Heian references

Yoshikai Naoto (2023) points out several further references [14]:

• An earlier 削り氷 in the Utsubo monogatari (うつほ物語), 「国譲」 chapter, where the pregnant 女一宮 eats shaved ice. No sweetener is mentioned.
• 削り氷 in the Eiga monogatari (栄花物語).
• Ice-related scenes in the Genji monogatari (「常夏」, 「蜻蛉」).
• 氷水 in another section of the Makura no sōshi (numbered 183段 in his reference).
• The Meigetsuki entry of 元久元年 (1204) 7月28日: 「有寒氷、大理自取刀被削氷云々」.

Yoshikai also cites the Ryō no gige (令義解) on the 主水司.

Hosono likewise lists:

• Genji (「蜻蛉」, 「常夏」).
• Eiga monogatari 「みねの月」, where the ailing 明子 “could only take shaved ice”.
• The Meigetsuki passage [13].

Assessment. The Pillow Book is the best-known early reference, but on Yoshikai’s reading it is not the earliest: he cites the Utsubo monogatari as an earlier attestation of 削り氷 [14]. The relative dating of Heian texts is itself approximate. “Earliest known reference” claims, such as the one in Highlighting Japan [31], should therefore be read as “earliest well-known reference”.

4. Historical development

4.1 Medieval period (Kamakura–Muromachi)

Fujiwara no Teika’s diary Meigetsuki (明月記) records an occasion in summer 1204 when ice was shaved with a knife. Different sources describe the event in different ways:

• Yoshikai quotes 「大理自取刀被削氷」 under 元久元年7月28日 [14].
• Hosono gives the same date and mentions 家隆 and ice put into sake [13].
• Toraya Bunko (Ono Miki) describes 源通具 shaving ice with a small knife, the ice being wrapped in white cloth [81].
• The Hokuetsu seppu quotes the same entry but dates it 「元久二年七月廿八日」 (1205) [7].

The 1204/1205 discrepancy is unresolved in the sources consulted (see the final section). Hosono reports that the court custom of distributing ice on the 1st of the 6th month (賜氷節) declined around the Kamakura period [13].

4.2 Edo period (1603–1868)

Kaga domain ice presentation. On 六月朔日 (1st day of the 6th month, the 氷室の朔日), the Kaga (Maeda) domain presented ice or snow to the shogun.

Tōto saijiki (東都歳時記, 1838) records: 「氷室御祝儀（賜氷の節）加州御屋敷に氷室ありて今日氷献上あり」 [17, 37].

The National Diet Library’s reference database (answer by Saitama Prefectural Kuki Library) adds:

• A 氷室 at the Kaga upper residence in Hongō is confirmed by Toen shōsetsu (兎園小説) for 文政8年 (1825).
• It is also confirmed by a residence map of about 1840–45.
• The ice house was probably built sometime between 1629 and 1838 [37].

The sources disagree on the transport of ice from Kanazawa.

• Kanazawa transport stated. The NDL answer quotes 『加能郷土辞彙』 (p. 748): ice stored in Kanazawa was packed in double paulownia chests and rushed to Edo by porters [29, 37].
• Kanazawa transport not documented. Takei Iwao (2004) reports that the snow presentation is not found in domain documents. He judges transport from Kanazawa “plausible” but unconfirmed. He also cites 『定本江戸城大奥』 (1892), according to which the “ice” presented was snow mixed with dirt, which the shogun’s wife did not eat [17].

This is treated here as disputed. Kanazawa today holds a 氷室開き (himuro-biraki) event [38], and Bunkyo City notes the Kaga ice house and the 7/1 “氷室の日” in its local-history pages [36]. These are modern commemorations, not evidence of the Edo-period route.

Komoro. Hosono cites 『安永之日記』 for the custom of 氷村 (an ice-producing village) presenting ice to the lord of Komoro castle: 「例年通氷村ヨリ今日氷指上候」 [13].

Street cold-water sellers. The late-Edo Morisada mankō (守貞謾稿, begun 1837), as quoted by Hosono, describes Edo’s 冷水賣 [13]:

• They drew cold spring water and added white sugar and dumplings of 寒晒粉 (cold-processed rice flour).
• They called out 「ひゃこひ ひゃこひ」 and charged 4 mon a bowl, or 8–12 mon with extra sugar.
• In Kyoto and Osaka a sugar-only version at about 6 mon was called 砂糖売.

Hosono’s modern gloss renders the dumplings as tokoroten, which differs from the original wording. This is chilled sweetened water, not shaved ice.

Shaved ice in the snow country, 1837. The Hokuetsu seppu (part 2) contains a 「削氷」 entry narrated by 京山人百樹 (Santō Kyōzan), the book’s editor, not by the Echigo author Suzuki Bokushi [7].

• In the 丁酉 year (1837), crossing 三国嶺 (the Mikuni pass) with his son 京水, Kyōzan stopped at a tea house.
• The old man there shaved snow-ice with a kitchen knife (菜刀) 「さら／＼と音して削りいれ、豆の粉をかけていだせり」: shaved with a rustling sound and served with soybean flour.
• The travellers then added sugar to theirs [7].

Toraya Bunko’s column describes the same episode, attributing it to Bokushi, and calls the knife a 菜切庖丁 [81]. Hosono dates the passage to “Tenpō 8 (1836)” [13], but Tenpō 8 corresponds to 1837. The primary text supports Kyōzan as narrator and 1837 as the year of the journey.

4.3 Meiji: imported ice, Hakodate ice and the first ice-water shops

Imported “Boston ice”. Frederic Tudor’s natural-ice trade began in 1805 [78]. After Yokohama opened, ice shipped from Boston was sold in Japan at very high prices. Nichirei cites 3–5 ryō per box [77]. Hosono reports ice being served at the Yokohama Hotel in 1864 [13].

Nakagawa Kahei and Hakodate ice. Nakagawa Kahei (中川嘉兵衛) tried to supply domestic natural ice to Yokohama, with failures from 1861 onward [13, 73, 77]:

• 1861. A Mt Fuji attempt in which about 100 t shrank to about 8 t in transit, according to Nichirei [77].
• Later attempts. He eventually harvested ice from the moat of Goryōkaku, Hakodate. The sources disagree on the date of the first success:
  • Hakodate City Culture and Sports Promotion Foundation: 明治元年 (1868), about 500 t [34].
  • Nichirei and the Kanagawa ice trade association: 1869, about 500 t [73, 77].
  • History of Hakodate (city): Nakagawa’s success at Goryōkaku dates to 明治4年 (1871). Goryōkaku ice appeared on the Tokyo–Yokohama market in summer 1871. British consular reports give 670 t for 1871 and 1,061 t for 1872 [32, 33].
  • Hosono: Nakagawa inspected Goryōkaku in 1869, obtained use rights in 1870 (17,000 tsubo for seven years), and cut 670 t in 1871 [13].
  • Best-supported reading. The 1871 commercial harvest of 670 t is supported by the official city history and Hosono. Claims of an 1868 or 1869 “success” may refer to trial harvests and are not independently documented in the sources consulted.
• 1873. Hakodate ice displaced Boston ice around 1873 [32]. Nakagawa was granted a monopoly on 13 February 1873 for five years, and Goryōkaku ice-harvesting continued until 1889 [33].
• Advertising. A 7 May 1872 Tokyo Nichinichi advertisement mentions 宮内省御用 (“purveyor to the Imperial Household Ministry”), according to Hosono [13].

Exhibition award (dates disputed). The brand 龍紋氷 (Ryūmon-hyō) is associated with an award at a 内国勧業博覧会 (National Industrial Exhibition):

• Nichirei says first prize at the first exhibition (1877) [77].
• The Hakodate foundation dates the medal to 1881 [34].
• Japanese Wikipedia gives 1891 [111].

The year is unresolved here.

Machida Fusazō’s ice-water shop (1869). The Kanagawa ice association quotes 太田久好編『横浜沿革誌』 [26, 72]:

「馬車道通常盤町五丁目に於て町田房造なるもの氷水店を開業す…本邦人は之を縦覧するのみ…翌年四月、伊勢山皇太神宮大祭に際し、再び開業せしに頗る繁昌…之を氷水店の嚆矢とす」

The shop is dated to 明治2年 (1869) 6月. At first Japanese passers-by only looked. When it reopened during the Iseyama Kōtai Jingū festival the following April, it did very good business. The Enkakushi calls it “the first ice-water shop”.

The Japan Ice Cream Association places the same event in 1869 (June, July by the new calendar). It credits Machida with selling aisukurin (あいすくりん), made with milk, egg and sugar, and suggests he may have learned from 出島松造 [75]. A monument, 「太陽の母子」, was installed in 1976 at 常盤町 in Naka-ku, Yokohama [48].

Interpretation. Machida’s shop is the earliest documented Japanese-run 氷水店 in the sources consulted. “First kakigori shop in Japan” is a later simplification. A popular history site claims that Nakagawa opened an ice shop in Yokohama in 1862, but it hedges this with 「といわれます」 (“it is said”) and cites no source [108]. That claim is unverified.

Ice stalls in literary sources, 1875–1881. Hosono cites a comic Chinese-style poem (狂詩) by 南橋散史 on ice selling, published in 『明治の光』 (1875) [13]. He also quotes 箕作秋萍 (Mitsukuri Shūhei, writing as 秋萍居士; Hosono’s spelling). In the essay series 「小西湖佳話」 in 『花月新誌』 (issue of 20 April 1881), Mitsukuri described the Ueno Hirokōji night stalls: 「簷頭高掲函館氷之三字…鑿氷冲々。霜糖堆盤」. Under the eaves hung the three characters “Hakodate ice”; ice was chipped with a clatter and “frost-sugar” was heaped on plates [13]. This is documentary evidence of shaved ice with sugar sold to the public under the Hakodate-ice label.

A foreign eyewitness, 1882. Edward S. Morse described shaved ice sold at festival booths in Yokkaichi during a journey begun on 26 July 1882 [8]:

“The ice is planed, the plane being upside down and fixed. A chunk of ice is moved back and forth over the plane, a dish underneath catching the shavings… a little sugar is added and a flavoring of powdered tea… Though ice is very high, sixteen to twenty cents a pound, this article is sold for a cent a glass.”

The description documents three things:

• the inverted plane (台鉋) technique;
• sugar and matcha flavouring;
• prices: ice was expensive by weight, but a glass was cheap.

Ice shops become ubiquitous (1890s). The Toraya Bunko column quotes 『風俗画報』 no. 99 (1895): 「東京横浜等の如きは…五歩に一店、十歩に一舗の有様なり」. In Tokyo and Yokohama there was “a shop every five paces, a store every ten” [81]. The column also cites the woodblock print 「新版ねこの氷屋」 (1889) [81].

4.4 Machine ice overtakes natural ice

• 1870. Machine ice was first made in Japan when Keiō students borrowed a small foreign ice machine owned by Matsudaira Shungaku. With help from Utsunomiya Saburō, they made ice to treat Fukuzawa Yukichi’s typhus fever [74, 78]. Hosono traces the episode to 『明治事物起源』 [13].
• 1879. Albert Waters founded the Japan Ice Company in Yamate, Yokohama, the first commercial machine-ice company [74, 78, 80]. In 1881 it was sold at auction to Ludovicus Stornebrink (with van Rissa, per Nichirei) and renamed Yokohama Ice Works [74, 78].
• 1879, Kobe. Yamada Keisuke (山田啓助, “the ice king of the West”; Nichirei’s 第2回 heading spells 啓介) began selling natural ice in Kobe in the same year [13, 78, 80].
• 1883. Tokyo Seihyō (東京製氷), the first Japanese-capital machine-ice company, was founded in Kyōbashi, Tokyo, and began sales in 1884 [78, 79]. The Kanagawa association’s page gives 「明治16年（1887年）」, an internal error, since Meiji 16 is 1883 [74].
• Natural vs machine ice. Natural ice sales peaked around 1887 [78]. Advocates of each side claimed the other was unhygienic [79].
• 1887. The Crown Prince (later Emperor Taishō) visited Tokyo Seihyō’s Tsukiji factory and saw hana-gōri (flowers frozen in ice). After this, a notice limited ice delivered to the palace to machine ice [74, 79].
• 1889 prices per ton. Goryōkaku natural ice ¥17.82; Tochigi ¥15.50; Kanagawa ¥14.40; machine ice ¥13.33. Nichirei based these figures on 香取国臣編『中川嘉兵衛伝』 [79].
• 1897. Machine ice overtook natural ice in market share [13, 79].
• Consolidation. Hosono and the Kanagawa association trace the industry’s later consolidation: 日本製氷 (1907) and the work of 和合英太郎, later 日東製氷 and 大日本製氷 [13, 74].

4.5 Regulation and the 氷 sign

Hosono and Nichirei both document Meiji ice regulation [13, 80]:

• 1878. A 警視本署 notice (5 September 1878) and a notice from Interior Minister Itō Hirobumi (22 September 1878) were followed on 4 December 1878 by the Interior Ministry’s 「氷製造人並販賣人取締規則」. It required sellers to display a sign stating where their ice was produced.
• Resulting signboards. According to Hosono and Nichirei, this led to signboards and banners such as 「官許氷 函館」 (“government-licensed ice: Hakodate”) [13, 80].
• 1900. The 内務省令「氷雪営業取締規則」 regulated the ice trade [13, 80].

Interpretation. It is commonly said that the familiar 「氷」 flag of kakigori shops descends from these origin-labelling rules. The regulation requiring origin signs is documented. The step from these signs to the later standardised 氷 flag design is an interpretation, supported by the sources above but not proven by a dated chain of examples (see Section 11).

4.6 Taishō and early Shōwa

• Planes give way to rotary shavers. Toraya Bunko states that ice planes (台鉋) remained common until about the Taishō era, and that rotary hand-cranked shavers spread in the early Shōwa era. A machine at 文京ふるさと歴史館 is cited as an example [81].
• The Murakami patent claim. Several local-museum and secondary sources credit 村上半三郎 with an 1887 patent for an ice-shaving device:
  • the Toraya column [81];
  • Japanese Wikipedia [109];
  • the Nasukarasuyama digital museum, which says the device “was invented around Meiji 20 (1887)” (明治20年ごろに発明された) [67].
• No patent number or Japan Patent Office record was located for this reference, so the patent is unverified.
• Prewar menu names. Japanese Wikipedia lists yuki (雪, sugar only), mizore (みぞれ, syrup) and kintoki (金時, red beans) [109]. This is tertiary and not independently confirmed here.

4.7 Postwar

• Shaving machines. The Hatsuyuki (初雪) shaver, now made by Chubu Corporation of Kuwana, has been made, with improvements, since 昭和24年 (1949), according to a Chubu-supplied caption in the Toraya column [81]. Ikenaga Tekkō began producing the “Swan” (スワン印) ice shaver in 1950 [105].
• Home use. Kakigori became common at home after electric refrigerators spread in roughly 1965–74 [81]. Highlighting Japan similarly places household spread in the 1960s–70s, together with red and yellow syrups [31].
• Toy-like home shavers. Tiger’s “Kyorochan” (きょろちゃん) home shaver dates from 1976 [81].
• Regional styles. Kagoshima’s shirokuma and Okinawa’s cold zenzai are postwar regional styles (Section 9).

4.8 Twenty-first century

Highlighting Japan reports the following [31]:

• Specialty kakigori shops grew in number over roughly the decade to 2021.
• Bowls costing more than ¥1,000 became common.
• Kakigori gained popularity after the 2011 power shortages.

Gurunavi Research Institute named 高級かき氷 (“luxury kakigori”) its 「今年の食流」 (food trend of the year) for 2014 [99]. Some secondary reports wrongly state that it was the 2014 「今年の一皿」 (dish of the year); the official page shows that the dish of the year was ジビエ料理 (game meat) [99].

The Japan Kakigori Association (日本かき氷協会) has organised events since 2011 and was incorporated on 10 August 2015, according to its own history page [82].

5. Ice and refrigeration

5.1 The physics of ordinary ice

Ordinary ice at atmospheric pressure is ice Ih, a hexagonal crystal [98]:

• Each water molecule donates two and accepts two hydrogen bonds, following the Bernal–Fowler ice rules.
• The positions of the hydrogen atoms are disordered (“proton disorder”).
• Moberg et al. describe ice Ih as stable down to about 72 K.

These structural facts underlie the anisotropy discussed in Section 7.

5.2 Natural ice (天然氷)

• How it is made. Natural ice in Japan is frozen outdoors in ponds during winter and then cut and stored. Miraikan reports that it freezes slowly at roughly −5 to −10 °C, growing about 2–3 mm per hour over one to two weeks, which expels air and impurities [66].
• Nikko producers. In Nikko, harvesting takes place from late January to February over about two weeks. The Tochigi tourism association states that only about five natural-ice producers remain in Japan, three of them in Nikko [46]. The association hedges this as 「といわれています」, so it is a reported, not audited, figure.
• Founding claims. 松月氷室 states that it was founded in 明治27年 (1894) [106] (business claim).

5.3 Machine ice (機械氷 / 人工氷 / 純氷)

Machine ice spread from 1879 (Section 4.4). Miraikan notes that household freezers operate at about −20 °C, and that very cold ice straight from a freezer is hard and shaves into coarse fragments. It recommends letting ice warm (“tempering”) before shaving [66].

Highlighting Japan quotes the view that ice made in small cubes gives a crunchy texture, while large blocks yield a fluffier result [31].

5.4 Historical cold chain

Before refrigerators, ice reached consumers through natural-ice harvest, ice houses, and shipping (Boston, Hakodate) [32, 77]. Hosono notes that the Edo-period methods for moving ice over long distances are poorly documented [13]. In Singapore, the National Heritage Board’s MUSE SG article reports manufactured ice from 1861, production of about 300–600 tons a day by the mid-1930s, and a 1948 survey finding that about half of ice output went to chilling fish [65].

6. Preparation

6.1 Historical techniques

• Knife. Heian and Kamakura sources describe shaving ice with a blade (刀). The Meigetsuki account mentions a knife and, according to Toraya Bunko, ice wrapped in white cloth [14, 81].
• Kitchen knife. At Mikuni pass in 1837 a 菜刀 was used on snow-ice [7].
• Inverted plane (台鉋). Morse (1882) describes an inverted, fixed plane [8]. In Singapore, newspaper reports from 1908 and 1909 describe ice shavings made “by drawing the ice down an inverted carpenter’s plane” [19]. Toraya Bunko reports that the confectioner 松岡軒 still shaves with a plane [81].
• Hand-cranked rotary shavers. These spread from the early Shōwa era [81]; Singapore has a museum example from the 1950s–70s [64].
• Electric shavers. Swan (Ikenaga) and Hatsuyuki (Chubu) are the principal Japanese commercial brands discussed in sources [81, 85, 105].

6.2 Modern method (general description)

1. Temper the ice. Ice is allowed to warm from freezer temperature until its surface begins to melt before shaving [66]. A Hawaiian shop owner interviewed by the New York Times describes the same practice [83], and so does a Los Angeles kakigori supplier interviewed by LAist [85].
2. Mount and shave. The block is clamped in a rotary shaver, and blade height and rotation are adjusted to give coarse or fine flakes. The Tokyo Tech/TUMSAT study notes that ice’s cutting behaviour depends on its crystal structure [87].
3. Build up and add toppings. Ice is shaved into a bowl or glass, often in layers with syrup or sauce between them. Toppings follow: syrups, condensed milk, anko, mochi/shiratama, fruit. Historically sugar, matcha and soybean flour were used [7, 8, 31].

7. Texture and food science

This section restricts itself to scientific statements in the sources.

Crystal size and grain boundaries. A 2015 joint study is summarised in a Gurunavi press release. The researchers were 大河誠司 (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and 鈴木徹 and 小川廣男 (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology) [87]. They reported:

• Crystal grains in natural Nikko ice of about 10 mm in width and 50 mm or more in length.
• Grains in artificial ice of about 2–3 mm by ~10 mm. The artificial ice was frozen at about −10 °C for 48 hours or more.
• In the natural ice, grain boundaries appeared only on the a-plane.
• Natural ice cut differently depending on direction, whereas artificial ice cut easily in all directions.
• The samples were sectioned with a microtome at 35 μm.

The study links these differences to the varied textures obtainable from kakigori. Caveat: this is a corporate press release reporting a study; a peer-reviewed publication was not located.

Temperature and crystal size. Miraikan’s science communicator gives two practical points [66]:

• Temperature. Ice taken straight from a household freezer (about −20 °C) is too cold and hard. The blade catches and the ice cracks, so it cannot be shaved thinly. It should be left out until its surface begins to melt.
• Crystal size. Ice made of large crystals is less prone to cracking and easier to shave thinly. Ice of small crystals cracks more easily during shaving. Crystal size depends on freezing conditions: rapid freezing at low temperature gives small crystals, while slow freezing at relatively higher temperatures gives large ones [66].

Trapped air. Water expels dissolved air and impurities as it freezes. In a freezer, rapid freezing from the outside traps air at the centre, producing a white, cloudy core. Pond ice freezing slowly downward from the surface remains clear [66].

Coarse vs. fluffy. Miraikan distinguishes two kinds of kakigori [66]:

• “Crunchy” (ザクザク). Typical of festival stalls and supermarket cups. It has large grains from crushed or coarsely shaved ice.
• “Fluffy” (ふわふわ). Ice shaved thin “like katsuobushi”, which melts almost instantly in the mouth.

“Brain freeze” claims. Two sources claim that some kinds of kakigori are less likely to cause “ice-cream headache” (頭がキーンとする):

• Miraikan. Its blog argues that fluffy ice melts at once and chills the mouth less, so it is “less likely to cause a headache” [66]. This is a science communicator’s explanation, not a reported experiment.
• Tochigi tourism page. It makes a similar claim for natural ice [46]. This is a marketing claim.

No controlled study testing either claim was located, so both are treated as unverified.

8. Flavours: historical, modern and experimental

8.1 Historically documented flavourings (Japan)

8.2 Modern flavours in Japan

Since the 2010s, specialty shops have sold kakigori at ¥1,000 or more per bowl [31, 99]. LAist describes contemporary Japanese kakigori, as seen by an LA importer, as having moved “from… artificially-flavored and colored syrups to an artisan treat”. Its examples include strawberries, chocolate, yuzu cheesecake and Mont Blanc–style chestnut [85].

8.3 Experimental flavours

This reference does not list individual “experimental” flavours. Shop menus change frequently and are business claims without independent documentation. The documented examples are the LA pop-up creations reported by LAist in 2021, including mango sticky rice, Hong Kong milk tea, banana-milk cream pie, and fig and ricotta [85].

8.4 Flavourings in related desserts abroad (documented)

9. Regional varieties

A distinction is drawn here between historically documented regional practices and modern regional designations used in tourism and marketing.

9.1 Historically documented

• Mikuni pass (Echigo/Kōzuke border), 1837. Snow-ice shaved with a knife and served with soybean flour at a tea house [7].
• Hakodate ice (函館氷). A Meiji-period origin brand displayed on shop signs in Tokyo and Yokohama [13, 32]. It is a brand of ice rather than a regional dessert.

9.2 Regional specialities with documented modern history

• Shirokuma (白熊, Kagoshima). MAFF’s “Our Regional Cuisines” series describes it as shaved ice topped with condensed milk and cherries, raisins, mandarin orange, pineapple, red beans and agar [39]. According to MAFF, it “is said to originate at a long-established eatery founded in the Shōwa 20s (1945–54)”. It began as simple kakigori with white and red syrup and was refined into a milk-flavoured syrup. The topping arrangement looked like a white bear from above. It sold for ¥50 when ordinary kakigori cost about ¥20 [39].
  • Mujaki’s claim. Tenmonkan Mujaki states that its founder 久保武 devised it in 昭和22年 (1947) and began selling it in 昭和24年 (1949) [102] (business claim).
  • A competing claim. Japanese Wikipedia reports a 1932–33 origin at 綿屋 in Nishida-hon-dōri, Kagoshima [110]. It attributes this theory to some prefectural and manufacturer sources, which were not consulted here.
  • The origin is therefore disputed.
• Okinawan zenzai (ぜんざい). In Okinawa, zenzai means shaved ice over sweet simmered kintoki beans, served cold. An Orion Breweries corporate article traces it to the traditional sweet amagashi (あまがし). In this account, kintoki beans replaced mung and azuki beans after the war, and with refrigerators it became usual to top the dish with shaved ice [107]. The article itself marks this as one theory among several (諸説あり). It is not included in MAFF’s regional-cuisine series as consulted.
• Nikko natural-ice kakigori (栃木). The Tochigi tourism association promotes kakigori made from Nikko natural ice [46]. This is a regional ingredient designation used in tourism.

9.3 Marketing designations

Many “regional” kakigori names are recent product or tourism names; examples include named prefectural fruit kakigori and “local” convenience-store versions. No independent documentation was gathered for these, so they are not catalogued.

10. Cultural significance

• Aesthetic refinement in the Heian court. The Pillow Book lists sweetened shaved ice among “refined things” alongside wisteria, plum blossom with snow and a rock-crystal rosary [1, 88]. Interpretation: the list conveys elegance and delicacy, not frequency of consumption.
• Ice as a court and political gift. Ice was presented as tribute and on ceremonial dates:
  • the Nihon shoki origin narrative [4];
  • Engishiki administration [5];
  • Kaga-domain presentations on 6/1 [17, 37];
  • the modern 献氷祭 at Fukusumi’s 氷室神社 on 1 July [35], and Nichirei’s mention of a 献氷祭 on 1 May at “the 氷室神社 in Nara Prefecture” [79].
• From luxury to popular food. The 1880s–90s sources show shaved ice becoming cheap street food. Morse observed it at “a cent a glass” despite high ice prices [8], and 『風俗画報』 described shops “every five paces” in 1895 [81].
• Summer and season. Highlighting Japan presents kakigori as a summer treat [31]. Festival stalls are a recurring setting from Morse’s 1882 account onward [8]. The Japan Kakigori Association designated 25 July as “Kakigori Day” (かき氷の日), according to Nihon Shokuryō Shinbun [86]. The reasons given are a wordplay on 夏氷 (na-tsu-gō-ri, 7-2-5) and the 40.8 °C record set in Yamagata on 25 July 1933, Japan’s highest temperature at the time the day was designated. This is an association designation, not an official holiday.
• Diaspora identity. In Hawaii, Hi’ilei Hobart’s research (as reported by the New York Times) places shave ice within the history of ice, colonisation and plantation society [83]. In Singapore, ice kachang was nominated as a “national treasure” in the mid-1980s [65].

11. Festivals, yatai and the 氷 flag

Festival stalls.

• Morse’s 1882 account is set in festival booths [8].
• Machida Fusazō’s Yokohama shop succeeded only when reopened for the Iseyama shrine festival [72].
• In Singapore, hawker push-carts with zinc tops, syrups and ice shavers are described from 1908 onward [19].

The 氷 sign/flag.

1. 1878, documented. Under the Interior Ministry’s 1878 regulation, ice sellers had to display signs naming where their ice came from. This produced signs such as 「官許氷 函館」 [13, 80].
2. 1881, documented. A banner reading 函館氷 hung from the eaves of Ueno ice stalls [13].
3. Today, documented. Highlighting Japan refers to the familiar 氷 banners of kakigori sellers [31].
4. Interpretation. That the modern 氷 flag descends from the 1878 labelling rule is plausible. No dated sequence of flag designs linking the two was found.

The specific modern design elements (waves, plovers, colours) were not documented in the sources consulted and are not described here.

Pricing in historical stalls.

• Morse: a cent a glass in 1882 [8].
• Morisada mankō cold-water sellers in Edo: 4 mon a bowl (not shaved ice) [13].
• Singapore: ice kachang at 20 cents a plate in 1948 [19].
• Philippines: Osawa’s memoir gives 10 centavos for mongo-ya (per Ocampo) [84].

12. Machines

Correction. The Swan brand is made by Ikenaga Tekkō (池永鉄工), not by “Ikeuchi” [105].

Patents. No ice-shaver patent was verified against a patent-office record for this reference, so no patent numbers are given.

13. Commercial development, convenience stores and packaged products

Meiji commercial chain. By the 1880s–90s the ice trade linked several stages:

• natural-ice producers (Hakodate, Nikko/Tochigi, Kanagawa);
• machine-ice companies (from 1879);
• retail ice-water shops and stalls.

Prices were competitive by 1889 [79], and shops were dense in Tokyo and Yokohama by 1895 [81].

Industrial consolidation. Tokyo Seihyō and 機械製氷 merged in 1907 as 日本製氷. The industry was later absorbed into 日本食料工業 (1934) and 日本水産, according to the Kanagawa ice association [74]. Hosono gives the 日東製氷 (1919) and 大日本製氷 (1928) stages [13]. The lineage of Nichirei’s ice business runs back to Japan’s first machine-ice company [78].

Legal category of packaged kakigori. Packaged kakigori and ice bars fall under 氷菓 (hyōka) in the Japan Ice Cream Association’s classification. They are regulated by the 乳等命令 (ministerial ordinance on milk and milk products) and by the food standards [76]. Under the national standard, 氷菓 must have ≤10,000 bacteria per ml of meltwater and test negative for coliforms [41].

Packaged regional products. Japanese Wikipedia reports that shirokuma is sold nationally as a packaged ice by 丸永製菓 (Kurume) and as a Seven-Eleven product [110] (tertiary). In Okinawa, packaged zenzai appears in supermarket freezer cases, and convenience stores sell their own versions [107].

Supermarket cups. Miraikan notes that cup kakigori sold in supermarkets has coarse grains of crushed or coarsely shaved ice [66].

Market data. The 2015 Gurunavi release reported, from Gurunavi’s restaurant listings, that the number of shops offering kakigori had roughly doubled since 2012. It also reported a consumer survey of 1,537 people [87]. These are company data and were not independently verified. No reliable national statistics on kakigori sales volume were located, and none are given.

14. Modern premium kakigori

• Trend recognition. Gurunavi Research Institute named 高級かき氷 its 2014 「今年の食流」. It noted bowls of ¥1,000 or more, queues, and attention to natural ice [99].
• Government description. Highlighting Japan (2021) describes the growth of specialty shops and prices above ¥1,000. It also quotes Koike Ryūsuke of the Japan Kakigori Association [31].
• Natural ice as a premium marker. Nikko natural ice is promoted for its slow freezing and large crystals [46, 66]. Some producers make founding claims, such as 松月氷室 (1894) [106].
• Science used in marketing. Both the 2015 Tokyo Tech/TUMSAT study and the Miraikan explanation are used to account for texture differences between natural and machine ice [66, 87]. Statements that natural ice is “better” are marketing claims. The scientific statements concern crystal size, grain boundaries and cutting behaviour, not quality judgements.
• Abroad. In Los Angeles, a US branch of Kuramoto Ice (a Kanazawa ice company that says it was founded in 1923, a business claim) promoted kakigori pop-ups from 2021. These used Japanese ice and a Swan electric shaver [85].

15. International development

This section limits itself to what the consulted sources document. Where a Japanese origin is asserted but not demonstrated, this is stated.

15.1 United States: Hawaii

• Migration. Japanese immigration to Hawai’i began in 1868 with the Gannen-mono. The first Okinawan contingent arrived in 1900, and 25,000 Okinawans emigrated to Hawai’i between 1900 and 1924 [62].
• Origin of shave ice. The New York Times (Kim Severson, 2016) reports that shave ice reached Hawaii “by way of sugar plantation laborers from Okinawa and other parts of Japan”. Japanese immigrants opened small stores serving plantation workers in the early 1900s, some selling shave ice. By the 1950s it was sold regularly at Japanese-owned stores; Matsumoto’s on the North Shore was founded as a grocery in 1951 [83].
• Scholarship. The article reports the NYU doctoral research of Hi’ilei Julia Hobart on ice in Hawaii [83]. The dissertation itself was not consulted.
• Evidence status. The Japanese-immigrant origin is well attested in secondary sources, but no primary record of the first Hawaiian shave-ice seller was located.

15.2 United States: mainland

• Snowballs and sno-balls. New Orleans “sno-balls” and Baltimore “snowballs” are local shaved-ice traditions:
  • Baltimore’s is attested in legend from the 1800s (Preservation Maryland calls it legend).
  • New Orleans electric shavers date from the 1930s [95, 96].
  • These sources do not attribute them to Japanese influence.
• Kakigori in Los Angeles. LAist (2021) documents a recent wave of Japanese-style kakigori in Los Angeles restaurants and pop-ups. It notes that high-end restaurants had offered it “for a few years” [85]. The article’s historical summary contains errors.

15.3 Korea (bingsu, 빙수)

• Seoul Metropolitan Government magazine (Park Chan-il, 2020) [44]:
  • quotes the 皇城新聞 (Hwangseong sinmun) of 4 September 1900 on a 빙수점 (bingsu shop) opening in Seoul;
  • reports that a newspaper around 1915 counted 442 bingsu shops in Gyeongseong (Seoul), cited at second hand;
  • says many sellers were Japanese, and that equipment came from Japan;
  • quotes 방정환’s essay 「빙수」 in 『별건곤』 (August 1929), which describes the ice being shaved;
  • dates expensive hotel bingsu, including a much-discussed mango bingsu, to the 1990s onward.
• An HyoJin (2022) analysed 73 newspaper articles from 1897–1945. According to the abstract, commercial sale began in the early 1900s and peaked in the 1920s–30s, with saccharin a noted concern [18].
• Assessment. A colonial-era Japanese channel for commercial bingsu is documented in secondary scholarship and journalism. The 1915 shop count was not verified in the original newspaper.

15.4 Taiwan (剉冰 / 刨冰)

• Ministry of Agriculture (2019). Ice-eating in Taiwan began in the Japanese colonial era (日治時期), when the Japanese introduced the habit. 剉冰 was “Taiwan’s earliest kind of ice”, first flavoured simply with banana oil and syrup, then with local beans and fruit. The ministry credits the 1997 mango ice to the shop 冰館 on Yongkang Street [45].
• National Museum of Taiwan History (Wei 2020). The earliest Taiwanese 剉冰 was “influenced by Japanese desserts” (受到日式甜點影響), with red beans. Glass ice bowls were mass-produced in the colonial era by Japanese-established glass factories. The museum holds such bowls (e.g. accession 2006.003.0031) [63].
• Assessment. Japanese influence on early Taiwanese shaved ice is stated by two government/museum sources.

15.5 Philippines (halo-halo)

Ambeth Ocampo argues that halo-halo derives from pre-war Japanese mongo-ya vendors. He draws on Kiyoshi Osawa’s memoir A Japanese in the Philippines (1981), which describes Japanese-run shops selling mung beans with shaved ice that disappeared after the war [27, 84]. Ocampo also mentions:

• earlier imported ice (Wenham Lake ice) in the mid-19th century;
• the Insular Ice Plant;
• the Japanese convenience-store chain Ministop selling halo-halo in Japan [84].

Assessment. This is a historian’s interpretation based on a memoir, cited approvingly by the Singapore Culinary Biographies report [19]. It is plausible but rests on limited documentation.

15.6 Singapore and the Malay world (ice kachang / ais kacang)

• Ice supply. Ice was manufactured in Singapore from 1861 [65].
• Early ice confections. An 1883 advertisement offered “Ices and Water Ices” at 15 cents a glass [19].
• Inverted planes. By 1908–09 vendors shaved ice on inverted carpenter’s planes [19].
• Ice balls. Syrup-coated ice balls were popular by the 1920s [19].
• Ayer batu kachang. A memoir places “ayer batu kachang” (boiled red beans and syrup topped with shredded ice) before the 1930s [19].
• “Ice Kachang” by name. The name is attested in the press by 1948 [19].
• Hygiene and decline of ice balls. Hygiene campaigns from the 1920s targeted ice balls, which faded by the late 1970s. Ice kachang was nominated as a “national treasure” in the mid-1980s [65].
• The Japanese Occupation claim. The report examined a 1989 claim that ice kachang came from a red-bean dessert introduced during the Japanese Occupation (1942–45) and found no supporting evidence. It notes that the memoir cited for the claim actually places the dessert earlier. It suggests that any Japanese link would be pre-war, possibly via immigrants selling kakigōri, by analogy with Ocampo’s halo-halo account [19].
• Malaysia. No Malaysia-specific historical source was consulted. The Malay name ais kacang (“bean ice”) is recorded in Singapore sources in the older spelling ayer batu kachang [19].

15.7 Mainland China

No primary or scholarly source on the history of shaved-ice desserts in mainland China was consulted. The Taiwan Ministry of Agriculture’s general statement about northern Chinese ice cellars [45] is not sufficient to establish a history, and none is offered here.

15.8 Independent traditions (not derived from kakigori)

• Sicily: granita. Visit Sicily (the regional government’s tourism site) traces granita to medieval snow collection by nivaroli and storage in neviere [47]. This is a tourism-authority claim, plausible but not independently verified here.
• Mexico: raspado. Larousse’s Diccionario enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana describes it as ice scraped from a block with a raspadora and sold from street carts [94].
• US mainland snowballs. See 15.2.

15.9 Israel

Mercer's Japanese Snow (Also known as Kakigori Israel) is an Israeli Kakiori stand that's all about bringing a taste of Japan to Israel. They're inspired by Japan's famous shaved-ice. As the first kakigōri stand in Israel, Mercer's Japanese Snow is introducing a new and exciting dessert to the local food scene. Their goal is to make kakigōri a big part of Israel's dessert culture, and they're doing it by combining Japanese inspiration with a unique Israeli twist (such as popular local flavors). The result is a refreshing and immersive dessert experience that's all about delicate textures, vibrant flavors, and a whole lot of fun. By bringing a little bit of Japan to Israel, Mercer's Japanese Snow is hoping to make kakigōri a favorite among dessert lovers. [117, 118, 119]

16. Comparison table

17. Nutrition

This section reports composition data only and makes no health claims.

Ice. Ice is frozen water and supplies no food energy, so the energy content of a serving of kakigori comes from its syrups and toppings. The MEXT Food Composition Database has no entry for “kakigori” as a dish. Values for typical toppings are below.

Notes.

• The energy of a serving depends on the amount of topping used. Portion sizes vary widely and are not standardised, so no per-serving figure is given.
• Colourings and flavourings in commercial syrups vary by product. Historical sweeteners included amazura, reconstructed at about 76° Brix [16], and saccharin in colonial Korea [18].

18. Food safety

18.1 Japan

• Current standards. Japan’s 「食品、添加物等の規格基準」 (昭和34年厚生省告示第370号), now published by the Consumer Affairs Agency, sets two relevant standards:
  • 氷雪 (ice used as food). Coliform bacteria negative. ≤100 bacteria per ml of meltwater. The source water must be 食品製造用水 (water suitable for food manufacture) [40].
  • 氷菓 (frozen confections, including packaged kakigori). ≤10,000 bacteria per ml of meltwater (excluding lactic-acid bacteria and yeasts where fermented milk is an ingredient). Coliforms negative [41].
• Meiji regulation.
  • 1878. The Interior Ministry’s 「氷製造人並販賣人取締規則」 required origin labelling for ice sellers [13, 80].
  • 1880s. Natural-ice harvesters cited Interior Ministry Hygiene Bureau testing and police inspection to defend the safety of moat ice. Machine-ice makers made similar claims [79].
  • 1900. The 「氷雪営業取締規則」 regulated the ice trade [13, 80].

18.2 United States (FDA Food Code 2022)

The Food Code is “a model… offered for adoption by local, state, and federal governmental jurisdictions” [42]. Its relevant provisions are:

• § 3-202.16. “Ice for use as a FOOD or a cooling medium shall be made from DRINKING WATER” [42].
• § 3-303.11. Ice used to cool the exterior of food or containers “may not be used as FOOD” [42].
• § 3-304.12(E). In-use utensils “such as ice scoops” may be stored “in a clean, protected location” when used only with food that is not time/temperature-controlled for safety [42].
• Annex 3. The Code notes that “freezing does not invariably kill microorganisms; on the contrary, it may preserve them” [42].

18.3 Historical hygiene concerns elsewhere

• Singapore. Repeated typhoid and cholera outbreaks associated with uncooked foods, including iced desserts and ice balls, prompted efforts to “clean up” street food from the 1920s [65].
• Korea. Colonial-era press coverage of bingsu included concern over saccharin [18].

19. People, businesses and institutions

19.1 People

• Sei Shōnagon (清少納言). Court lady and author of the Makura no sōshi, with the 「あてなるもの」 passage [1].
• Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家). Author of the Meigetsuki, which records ice shaved with a knife in 1204 (or 1205) [7, 14].
• Suzuki Bokushi (鈴木牧之) and Santō Kyōzan (京山人百樹). Author and editor of the Hokuetsu seppu. Kyōzan narrates the 1837 削氷 episode [7].
• Nakagawa Kahei (中川嘉兵衛).
  • Pioneer of Japanese natural ice (Hakodate ice) [32, 33, 77].
  • After Goryōkaku harvesting ended in 1889, he planned a machine-ice company.
  • He died on 4 January 1897 [74].
  • The company began operating at Narihirabashi after his death, in 明治31年 (1898). The Kanagawa page prints “1896” [74].
• Machida Fusazō (町田房造). Opened a 氷水店 in Bashamichi, Yokohama, in 1869 [72, 75].
• Yamada Keisuke (山田啓助). “Ice king of the West”. He sold natural ice in Kobe from 1879 [13, 80].
• Albert Waters. Founder of the Japan Ice Company, Yokohama, 1879 [78].
• Ludovicus Stornebrink. Bought the Japan Ice Company at auction in 1881 (Yokohama Ice Works) [74, 78].
• Fukuzawa Yukichi (福沢諭吉). His 1870 illness occasioned Japan’s first machine-made ice [74, 78].
• Wagō Eitarō (和合英太郎). Figure in 20th-century ice-industry consolidation [13].
• Murakami Hanzaburō (村上半三郎). Credited with an 1887 ice-shaver “patent” (unverified) [81, 109].
• Edward S. Morse. American zoologist whose diary describes kakigori in 1882 [8].
• Mitsukuri Shūhei (箕作秋萍). Described the Ueno ice stalls in 1881 [13].
• Kubo Takeshi (久保武). Founder of Mujaki, credited by the company with shirokuma (business claim) [102].
• Koike Ryūsuke. Japan Kakigori Association, quoted in Highlighting Japan [31].
• Hi’ilei Julia Hobart. Scholar of ice in Hawaii [83].
• Ambeth R. Ocampo. Philippine historian (halo-halo) [84].
• Geoffrey K. Pakiam. Historian of Singapore food (ice kachang) [19, 65].

19.2 Businesses

19.3 Institutions

20. Historical Japanese sources

21. Glossary

† = standard modern reading supplied by the compiler; the cited source does not itself give the reading.

22. Timeline

Part II

E1. Ice shrines, ice-offering rites and ice-house sites

E1.1 Himuro Jinja, Nara (氷室神社, 奈良市春日野町)

Deities. The shrine names three deities [69]:

• 大鷦鷯命 (Ōsasagi no mikoto, identified with Emperor Nintoku);
• 闘鶏稲置大山主命 (Tsuge no inaki Ōyamanushi no mikoto);
• 額田大仲彦命 (Nukata no Ōnakatsuhiko no mikoto).

These are the three figures of the Nihon shoki ice-house episode (Section 3.1; [4]): the emperor, the local chief who explained the ice house, and the prince who discovered it.

The shrine’s founding narrative (shrine tradition, ご由緒) [69]:

• In 和銅3年 (710), by imperial order, the shrine was established on the imperial hill of Kasuga (春日の御蓋の御料山, i.e. Kasugayama) in the left capital of the new Heijō capital. There it “taught the application of cold” (冷の応用を教えられました).
• This was the ice house of the seven Heijō reigns (平城七朝の氷室). It was also called the 平城氷室, 御蓋氷室 or 春日の氷室.
• The following year an imperially sponsored ice-offering rite (献氷の勅祭) began. Ice was presented to the capital each year from 1 April to 30 September.
• The arrangement lasted “seventy-odd years over seven reigns” of the Nara court. It was abolished after the capital moved to Heian.
• In 貞観2年 (860), under Emperor Seiwa, the shrine was moved to its present site and two deities were added, making three.
• It later belonged to Kasuga as a 別宮 (branch shrine). Its upkeep and rites were funded from the 朱印 holdings of Kōfukuji and the Kasuga shrine (stated as 二万石) and from part of a 2,000-koku allowance for court musicians.
• After the Meiji Restoration this support ended. Since then the shrine has been maintained by its parishioners and by the refrigeration and ice industries.

A variant founding date. The shrine’s own newsletter 『なら氷室』 No. 3 (1 May 2003) gives a different account. Citing the 『遠弘神主記』, it says the ice house was moved to the 御笠御料山 by imperial edict of Empress Genmei in 和銅二年 (709), the 闘鶏大神 was enshrined there, and the shrine “taught ice-making techniques to the provinces” [71].

• The two shrine texts therefore differ by one year (709 vs 710).
• The 『遠弘神主記』 itself was not consulted.

Site of the Nara-period ice pond and ice house (shrine interpretation). The shrine places the ice pond (氷池) near the present 新公会堂 (Nara Prefectural New Public Hall). It estimates the ice houses lay in the 浅茅ヶ原 area overlooking the 荒池 and 鷺池 ponds [69]. The text is hedged (推定, “営まれたようです”), and should be read as an interpretation, not an excavation result.

MAFF’s version [50]:

• The shrine is “said to have” (いわれている) begun in 710 when an “ice god” was enshrined at a giant rock called 月日磐 (Tsukihi-iwa) on the upper reaches of the 吉城川 near Mt Wakakusa.
• An ice house was set up at the rock, and a ceremony of presenting ice to the Heijō palace was held for about seventy years.

This location (a rock on the Yoshiki River) differs from the shrine’s own placement (ponds near the present New Public Hall and the 浅茅ヶ原). The two accounts cannot be reconciled from the sources consulted.

Court customs the shrine associates with ice [69]. These are the shrine’s descriptions, not checked against court records:

• 氷の朔日 (kōri no tsuitachi). On the 1st day of the 6th lunar month the court held 氷の節会 or 氷室の節会 (ice banquets).
• 歯固め (hagatame). On the same day ordinary people grilled 寒餅 or 凍餅 (rice cakes freeze-dried in the coldest season), offered them to gods and buddhas and ate them. The shrine defines 寒餅 as rice cakes made in the roughly thirty days from 小寒 to 節分, and says that the harsher the winter, the better they keep.
• 氷様 (hi no tameshi). At the New Year banquet the court reported the thickness of the ice stored in the provincial ice houses in the previous twelfth month, using models made of stone or tile. A thick ice crop foretold a good harvest, a thin one a bad harvest. The shrine interprets this as part of agrarian divination.

The modern Kenpyōsai (献氷祭, ice-offering festival). Shrine pages state [69, 70]:

• It is held on 1 May, attended by ice makers and dealers “from all over the country” who pray for business success.
• The date is chosen to avoid the industry’s busy month of June.
• Two large ice pillars are offered, one with a sea bream (representing the sea) and one with a carp (representing the land), together with 花氷 (hanagōri, ice with flowers frozen in).
• Kakigori is distributed and bugaku (court dance) is performed.

The Nara City Tourism Association adds the times: the rite at 11:00, public worship from the afternoon, and bugaku at 14:00 [49].

Other observances on the shrine’s website [70]:

• 氷献灯 (hyōkentō): on the first of each month, from about sunset, candles are lit in lanterns made of ice.
• 氷みくじ: a fortune slip on which text appears when it is laid on ice.
• かき氷献氷: in summer only, kakigori first offered before the deity can be received as osagari (offerings handed down to worshippers).

The site describes the shrine as the guardian deity of “refrigeration, cold storage and ice-making and sales” and of “refrigeration and cold-storage technology”.

MAFF on the shrine’s role today [50]. MAFF’s Our Regional Cuisines programme lists kakigori as a regional dish of Nara Prefecture (whole prefecture; main ingredients “ice, syrup, etc.”). It explains:

• why kakigori is “becoming a new food culture” in Nara, linking it to the Himuro Jinja and to the Pillow Book;
• that it is now sold year-round in cafés and restaurants, though eaten mostly in summer;
• that dishes using Nara strawberries are popular, Nara being “one of the leading strawberry-producing areas in the Kinki region”;
• that the 「ひむろしらゆき祭」 festival is held to promote Nara as a “city of ice”.

The other MAFF regional-cuisine entry cited in this work is Kagoshima’s shirokuma (Section 9).

E1.2 Himuro Jinja, Fukusumi (Tenri) and the Tsuge ice houses

The shrine. The Tenri City Tourism Association gives the Fukusumi shrine the same three deities. It calls it a “very rare shrine in Japan” dedicated to an “ice god” [51]. It states that:

• the shrine’s old documents were “almost all scattered” in the turmoil of the Meiji Restoration, so its detailed history is unknown;
• by shrine tradition (社伝) it was founded in the reign of Ingyō, given as 「430年前後？」, with the question mark in the original;
• the district was anciently called 闘鶏 or 都祀 (both read Tsuge). It was a royal hunting ground and also a place that sent ice to the court in summer;
• ice made in ponds in winter was kept in 氷室, chambers dug into the ground, and large hollows remain near the shrine.

The ice-house remains (氷室跡) [52]:

• Three ice-house remains survive on the wooded hill behind Fukusumi Junior High School. Visitors can see “large sunken holes” that convey the scale of the pits.
• The page repeats the Nihon shoki episode (Nintoku 62; Section 3.1).
• It reports that in 1988 (昭和63年) the excavation of the residence of Prince Nagaya in Heijō-kyō yielded wooden tablets reading 「都祁氷室」 and 「都祁凍進始日」. This made the Fukusumi ice houses “suddenly famous”.

Note on the tablet text. The Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties record cited in Part I gives the reading 「都祁氷進始日」 [6], whereas Tenri’s page has 「都祁凍進始日」 [52]. The institute’s database is the authoritative transcription. The Tenri form may be an error or may reflect a different tablet. This was not resolved.

Festivals. The tourism page says a 献氷祭 is held “every July” and an autumn festival in October, with a portable-shrine procession to the 御旅所. Since 2007 the autumn festival has been held on a public holiday in mid-October [51]. MAFF and Nara Prefecture give the July festival as 1 July [35, 50].

E1.3 Kanazawa: Kaga snow-ice, the Yuwaku reconstruction and Ishikawa’s ice houses

Part I (Sections 3–4) discussed the Kaga domain’s presentation of ice to the shogun on 6/1, the Tōto saijiki entry and the doubts about overland transport. The sources below add local detail.

The Yuwaku Onsen Tourism Association’s account [53]:

• In Kanazawa, 1 July is called 「氷室の日」 (himuro no hi). Under the domain, the 1st day of the 6th lunar month was 「氷室の朔日」.
• Snow that fell on the Hakusan range during winter (大寒の雪) was stored in ice houses. On 6/1 it was named 「白山氷」 (Hakusan ice), packed in double paulownia chests (桐の二重長持) and presented to the shogun in Edo.
• Early in the domain’s history, ice from the ice house of 倉谷村 in the Hakusan range was used. Under the fifth lord, Maeda Tsunanori, many ice houses were built in and near Kanazawa, and townspeople were permitted to eat ice.
• Summer ice remained precious, mainly given as a gift to superiors, and “it seems it was hard for ordinary people to eat it”. As a substitute, the custom of eating 「氷室饅頭」 (himuro manjū), made with wheat, to pray for good health survives today.
• Many ice houses were used until early Shōwa, but with the spread of machine ice they fell out of use. By about 昭和17–18年 (1942–43) “almost none were seen”.
• A former ice house survives only as “a large hole holding water” at the foot of 山崎山 in Kenrokuen.
• Yuwaku itself once had scattered ice-house huts used to store food and for the sick.

The Yuwaku reconstruction. From 昭和六十一年 (1986), with the city’s cooperation, the association rebuilt an ice house [53]:

• Packing. Each year on the last Sunday of January, residents, citizens and tourists pack snow into it.
• Cutting and presentation. At the end of June the compacted snow is cut out and presented to the governor of Ishikawa, the mayor of Kanazawa, and Itabashi and Meguro wards in Tokyo, where the domain’s 下屋敷 (secondary residences) stood.
• The hut. It stands beside 玉泉湖 and measures 4 m wide, 6 m deep and 2.5 m deep below ground, with a thatched roof.

The Kanazawa City Tourism Association’s page (Part I [38]) lists the 2026 event:

• 「氷室開き」 on 30 June 2026, 10:00–11:30, at the 「玉泉湖畔 氷室小屋」;
• a Buddhist service at the hut, after which the snow-ice is offered at 薬師寺 (Yakushi-ji);
• sale of himuro manjū;
• a 「氷室の仕込み初め」 (first packing) at the end of January.

The Ishikawa ice-house survey (Takei, Kanda and Ogawa 2009) [20]. This is a list of 63 ice houses or snow cellars in Ishikawa Prefecture, compiled from old documents, municipal histories, earlier studies and field interviews. For each it records name, location, setting, size, period of use, present state and purpose. Points from the paper:

• Use and decline. The use of stored snow for chilling fresh fish and as a fever remedy was familiar to ordinary people after Meiji. The spread of artificial ice from the Taishō period caused gradual decline, and the facilities “were no longer operated by the 昭和30年代 (1955–64)”.
• Literary record. The summer appearance of stored snow is recorded in Kanazawa’s himuro no hi vocabulary: 「雪の氷」, 「白山氷」 and 「がばり」. These appear in 泉鏡花’s 「寸情風土記」 (1920) and in newspaper items quoted in the 『石川縣河北郡誌』.
• Domain-period entries. 金沢城玉泉院丸氷室 (2 × 4 ken, from 1692) and 金沢城二の丸氷室 (both on the castle hill); a 兼六園山崎山貯雪窖 for ritual use; and a pond at the rear of 山崎山 identified as an ice-house site (20 m × 10 m, Meiji to Shōwa?).
• Fifteen commercial ice houses in Kanazawa, taken from 北島俊朗’s 1982 interview survey 「金沢の氷室」. They were used between 1898 and 1945. One beside the 十全 hospital (1898–1932) served the hospital. The largest is recorded as 300 坪 × 30 尺, and most sites are now house plots.
• Fish storage. Pits at Ōmichō market were used to cool fish in the Taishō period.
• Other districts. Kahoku had snow stores for silkworm eggs (蚕種) in the Taishō period. Hakusan’s 白峰市ノ瀬 had a snow cellar about 4.5 m across, used around 1955. Kaga (Daishōji) had ice houses that supplied fishmongers.
• The Yuwaku reconstructions. No. 24 in the list is the first, on the shore of 玉泉湖, used 1986–2002. No. 25 is the second, in the grounds of 薬師寺, used from 2003. The figure caption, however, dates the first to 「昭和62年–平成14年」 (1987–2002).

Discrepancies.

• The association gives 1986 as the start of the reconstruction; the paper’s caption gives 1987, and its table 1986.
• The paper places the current hut at Yakushi-ji (from 2003), whereas the association’s page and the 2026 event listing place it by 玉泉湖.

The sources do not explain whether the hut moved back.

Other accounts of transport to Edo. Hosono reports two further accounts [13]:

• Relay snow cellars. Awaya Ryōma (粟屋良馬), an agricultural engineer prominent in the history of Japanese refrigeration administration, described snow cellars placed at several points between Kaga and Edo. The last of them stood by the pond of the former Kaga residence’s 山上御殿, today’s 三四郎池 inside the Akamon of the University of Tokyo.
• Surplus snow for passers-by. Ishii Kendō’s 『明治事物起源』 says that snow blocks kept in the Komagome ice house were presented to the shogun, and the surplus was given to passers-by. Many people, the work claims, went to the Kaga residence for a share.

Hosono himself says accounts of the transport “vary” and some are “embellished like stories”. He also cites the senryū 「文には氷、重箱には水ばかり」 (“in the letter, ‘ice’; in the box, only water”), mocking ice that had melted in transit.

• He notes that in 安永2年 (1773) the Maeda lord cooled a reception hall with snow and ice when entertaining other daimyo.
• The relay-cellar account is unverified: it rests on one twentieth-century official’s statement, quoted at second hand.

E2. Natural ice (天然氷): production methods and the Nikko case

E2.1 Who makes it

The Yomiuri travel magazine (2024) states [92]:

• Producers. Only five long-established natural-ice producers (蔵元) are said to remain in Japan, three of them in Nikko, Tochigi: 松月氷室, 三ツ星氷室 and 四代目徳次郎. This matches the Tochigi tourism association’s figure cited in Part I [46].
• Freezing. All three freeze clean stream water in ponds at the foot of the Nikko mountains over about two weeks of winter cold. This produces dense, hard ice that does not melt before summer.

The Gurunavi newsletter names Nikko (Tochigi) and Chichibu-gun (Saitama) as well-known natural-ice districts. It describes natural ice as frozen slowly in January–February, stored in an ice house wrapped in sawdust at ambient temperature, and made with almost no electricity [87].

E2.2 Method as described by a Nikko producer

The Mizkan Water Culture Center’s magazine Mizu no bunka (no. 53) reports an interview with the producer known as 四代目徳次郎 (Yamamoto Yūichirō), recorded on 22 December 2015 [91]. The points below are the producer’s practice as reported by the magazine (documented as a description of current practice, not as general science).

Historical context.

• Nikko’s natural ice became a serious business only in the late Meiji period. It was “a latecomer as a production area”.
• Hotels catering to foreigners, such as the 日光金谷ホテル (founded 明治6年 / 1873), needed refrigeration.
• At its peak Nikko had “more than ten” ice houses, and ice was shipped to Tokyo and elsewhere by rail freight car.

Succession. Yamamoto ran a tourist facility that served kakigori from bought natural ice. About ten years before the interview he heard that the previous producer intended to stop. When the producer declined his offer of help, he asked to be taught and took over the pond and ice house.

Calendar.

• Preparation, including cleaning the pond, starts in early November. Ice is made from December to February.
• Blocks are cut at about 15 cm thickness, usually twice a winter and at most three times.

Controlling the freeze.

• Water from a spring about 500 m upstream is piped in. The pond is shaded in winter.
• Outside freezing windows, water is kept flowing so that the surface ripples and does not freeze. The flow is stopped only when good ice is forecast.
• The surface ice must be hard, or the ice beneath will not be hard either.
• The producer says “ice grows at night”. Ice that takes too long to freeze, or that freezes too abruptly, comes out soft.
• Several consecutive days at −7 to −8 °C are ideal. Ice formed when temperatures stay too high or fall too far is broken up and discarded.
• He reads cloud movement on 赤薙山 as a sign: slow-moving cloud on the ridge means poor ice.
• An initial freeze is made only to collect debris and is discarded with the surface layer, which gives few impurities and high clarity.

Cutting and handling.

• A powered cutter follows lines marked the day before.
• Blocks of about 40 kg slide to the ice house on rails of local 孟宗竹 (moso bamboo). The bamboo nodes act as brakes. Taking bamboo each year keeps the local groves managed.

Storage.

• Blocks are laid in an ice house with walls and floor of local cedar and covered with Nikko-cedar sawdust. Gravel under the floor drains meltwater.
• The sawdust absorbs surface meltwater and lets it evaporate slowly, so ice keeps “for more than a year”. The ice in turn keeps the sawdust from rotting.
• The sawdust in use was said to be 50–60 years old.

Conservation. The producer founded a group, 「森と水の会」, to conserve the forest that supplies the water.

E2.3 Serving practice for natural ice

The Yomiuri article reports two practices [92]:

• Tempering. Shops serving natural-ice kakigori “deliberately leave the ice at room temperature to loosen it a little” before shaving.
• Cold storage. The producer-run shop 松月氷室 keeps the ice in a refrigerator at 1–2 °C until just before use. The article says this makes the shavings fluffy and reduces the temperature difference with the body.

These are trade practices, consistent with the tempering advice in the manufacturer and rental-shop guidance below (E4.3). The physiological claim about temperature difference is not supported by any study located.

E2.4 Documentary trail for the history of Nikko ice

A reference answer by the Tochigi Prefectural Library (2021) maps the printed sources [54]. None of the books it lists was consulted here; they are listed so the trail can be followed.

• 今市. 『今市史談』 復刊第16号 (2007) says ice-making was one of 今市’s specialities in Meiji. It quotes a 下野新聞 article of 明治20年 (1887), drawn from 『今市関係新聞記事資料 明治・大正編』 (2003).
• 菊池建太 2006. 『天然氷の歴史と今』 has a section on surviving natural-ice harvesting in Nikko and 今市 (pp. 34–38).
• Nakagawa and Nikko. 『食物誌』 (石毛直道 et al., 1984) lists Nikko among the places where Nakagawa Kahei tried natural ice from about 文久元年. 村瀬敬子’s 『冷たいおいしさの誕生』 (2005) mentions Nikko in 元治元年 (1864), without further detail.
• Two accounts by Nakagawa. 斎藤多喜夫’s 『幕末・明治の横浜』 (2017, pp. 130–131) shows that Nakagawa left two mutually inconsistent accounts of his ice ventures: account A, based on a memo of about 明治4年, and account B, based on 「製氷沿革略記」. Only account B mentions 「下野国日光山」.
• Statistics. 栃木県警察部衛生課『衛生統計書 昭和12年』 (1938) contains a table 「天然氷採取状况」 on p. 22. It is digitised in the NDL Digital Collections (pid 1096927).
• NDL Digital Collections, library-transmission access only: 亘理信一『製氷の事業と技術』 (1950), section 「本邦に於ける天然氷事業」; and 泉寅夫『氷』 (1929), with a table 「全國天然氷採取業統計」.

These items (NDL pids 1162148 and 1188793) are restricted to participating libraries and could not be read for this edition. They are the most promising next sources for quantitative natural-ice history.

E2.5 Prices: natural versus machine ice, 1889

The Kanagawa ice retailers’ association gives these prices for 1889, per 12 kan (45 kg) [74]:

The same page reports two developments that hurt natural ice:

• July 1887. The Crown Prince (later Emperor Taishō) visited Tokyo Seihyō’s Tsukiji plant and watched hanagōri being made. The plant then became an Imperial Household supplier with a dedicated freezing tank. The Imperial Household subsequently announced that its ice would be machine ice only, which the page calls “a great blow” to natural ice.
• 1889. A change to the Goryōkaku leasing rules ended harvesting there [74].

The page’s dating of Nakagawa’s machine-ice company as 「明治31年（1896年）」 contains an internal error: 明治31年 is 1898. Its later summary says that by the wartime consolidation of 1943, 107 ice companies had been merged over sixty years, accounting for more than half of national ice-making capacity [74].

E3. The physics and texture of shaved ice: research findings

Part I (Section 7) summarised the general account: crystal structure, slow freezing and fine shavings. This chapter reports the details of three studies.

E3.1 Natural versus machine ice: the 2015 Tokyo Tech and TUMSAT study

The full study text is given in Gurunavi’s 2015 release [87]. Part I flagged this release as not fully consulted; it has now been read.

Study 1: crystal structure (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 食品冷凍学研究室 and 食品物性学研究室; 鈴木徹 and 小川廣男). The researchers observed the presence, direction, structure and size of grain boundaries in natural ice (Nikko, Tochigi) and machine ice.

• Both kinds. Both showed straight grain boundaries and both consisted of “relatively large multiple ice crystals”.
• Natural ice. Grain boundaries appeared only on the a-planes perpendicular to the c-axis plane of the hexagonal crystal. Grains were estimated at 10 mm wide and more than 50 mm long. The authors say the natural ice must have formed in “an extremely special environment” allowing large crystals.
• Machine ice. Grains were estimated at 2–3 mm wide and about 10 mm long. It also showed straight boundaries on only one plane, suggesting an a-plane equivalent. Because machine ice freezes inward from the walls of the ice can, its crystal growth direction depends on the can’s shape and is “not necessarily one direction”.

Study 2: cutting (Tokyo Institute of Technology, 機械物理工学専攻, associate professor 大河誠司).

• Method. About 20 mm cubes of each ice were sliced horizontally with a rotary microtome at 35 μm steps, in three defined orientations.
• Natural ice. Results depended strongly on direction:
  • Direction ① cut softly and easily, but the sections broke and folded.
  • Direction ② met slightly more resistance and gave clean sheets, with many holes.
  • Direction ③ usually met large resistance. Its sections were either sheets or loose, fragile structures, varying with height in the block.
• Machine ice. It cut easily in every direction and gave dense, distinct sections.
• Interpretation (the authors’). Natural ice approaches a single crystal with aligned a-planes and c-axis, and bonding is strongest along the a-plane. A blade of finite thickness therefore meets most resistance when it must advance along the a-plane (③), and least along the weakly bonded c-axis (①). Machine ice is air-free “pure ice” with crystal axes that vary with position. Its dense sections are attributed to the absence of air.

Context. The release states that the selection of 高級かき氷 as Gurunavi’s 「2014年 今年の一皿」 prompted the study. Part I showed from Gurunavi’s own Dish-of-the-Year page that 高級かき氷 was in fact the 2014 「今年の食流」 [99]. The release defines machine (artificial) ice as ice frozen in a plant at about −10 °C for 48 hours or more, also called 純氷, “highly transparent, hard and slow to melt”. It also says natural ice “is generally said to melt pleasantly in the mouth” [112]. Both are general statements, not study findings.

Limitations. The study used one natural-ice source and one machine-ice source. It was published in a corporate newsletter, not a peer-reviewed journal (none was found), and it measured cutting behaviour, not perceived texture.

E3.2 Why does frozen sugar-water shave “fluffy”? Komura (2003)

The physicist 好村滋行 (Komura Shigeyuki, Tokyo Metropolitan University) published an essay in the Kyoto-based physics bulletin 『物性研究』 (2003) [21]. It records an informal inquiry, prompted by a television programme’s question, into why kakigori made from frozen sugar-water is softer and fluffier than kakigori from plain ice.

What was observed (Komura’s informal tests, not a controlled experiment):

• After buying a household ice shaver, Komura found that frozen sugar-water was “sensorily ‘soft’”. It shaved more easily, and its texture was 「ふわふわ」 (fluffy), whereas frozen plain water was 「がちがち」 (hard and crunchy).
• A test at Ochanomizu University with frozen salt water gave a texture “closer to plain water”. Sugar-water ice was the softest.
• The surface of frozen sugar-water felt wet and sticky to the touch.

Explanations collected (all labelled as hypotheses in the essay):

1. Freezing-point depression. Dissolved sugar lowers the freezing point. Komura gives about −2 °C for about 300 g of sucrose in 1 kg of water, “not a large change”.
2. Phase separation. On further cooling, nearly pure ice crystallises out, leaving an increasingly concentrated sugar solution between crystals. Several correspondents favoured this, including the Tel Aviv physicist David Andelman and the Weizmann Institute’s Michael Elbaum. Elbaum wrote that expelled sugar keeps the crystallites small and leaves an unfrozen layer between them. The small crystals “slip across each other when you bite into them”.
3. Disruption of the water network by sugar’s hydrogen bonding. A professor at Ochanomizu suggested this, but a researcher in Tokyo Metropolitan University’s engineering faculty told Komura that foreign molecules can almost never enter the ice lattice. Komura concluded this was “not necessarily correct”.
4. Inhibition of crystal growth. Sugar molecules hinder the growth of large ice crystals.
5. Lubrication. A metals engineer suggested that concentrated solution or alcohol between blade and ice acts as a lubricant, improving machinability.
6. Shear thickening in the mouth (a correspondent from Mie University). Komura doubted it, since increased viscosity should feel harder.

An Osaka University correspondent judged that “inhomogeneity and small grain size” were the primary cause, together with a liquid concentrated phase if the whole was not frozen.

Komura’s conclusion. Despite many contributions, “a clear answer to the ‘kakigori problem’ has not been obtained”. The essay is valuable as a record of expert opinion. It is not a measurement study, and it concerns ice frozen from solutions, not syrup poured on plain ice.

E3.3 Computer simulation of kakigori (2024)

A 2024 conference paper from Tokyo University of Technology proposes a visual simulation of kakigori for computer graphics [22]:

• Piling. Fragments are generated with Perlin noise and piled with the Bullet physics engine.
• Syrup. Absorption is modelled by copying colour information from syrup to ice on contact.
• Melting. Melting is modelled by enlarging voxel size over time, so that fine fragments merge into a single lump of ice.

It concerns appearance only and makes no physical claims about real ice.

E4. Machines, patents and operating procedure

E4.1 Japanese makers: documented facts

Ikenaga Tekkō (池永鉄工, SWAN). The company’s history page gives this chronology [105]:

The top page says SWAN ice shavers have been made “since 昭和25年” (1950) in the company’s own factory in Osaka [113]. Its news items for 2026 report:

• the new shaver aile (エイル) / SI-170A, announced 21 February 2026;
• the end of production of the hand-cranked 「南極 SI-5A」, announced 6 April 2026.

The company describes its shavers’ “sharpness of blade, durability and ease of use” as kept at a high level. That is a business claim.

Chubu Corporation (中部コーポレーション, Hatsuyuki 初雪). The company is based in Kuwana, Mie [104]. Its block-ice slicer page states:

• “a Japanese-made ice shaver with reliability and a record continuing for over 70 years since 1949”;
• that the slicers shave “commercially sold block ice of about 13 cm square (半貫目氷)” [114].

Part I noted that the 1949 date rested on a caption supplied by Chubu. It now also appears on Chubu’s own product page, but it remains a business claim: the company’s corporate-history page, as seen for Part I, does not mention ice shavers [103].

Published specifications for two current BASYS electric models [114]:

E4.2 Patents located

The patents below were each read in the patent office text reproduced by Google Patents or FreePatentsOnline. Patents are primary documents for what was claimed and when. They are not evidence of who invented a type of machine first.

US 1,700,819, Samuel Bert of Dallas, “Ice shaving and cutting machine” [10]

• Filed 27 April 1928; issued 5 February 1929.
• Purpose: “more particularly designed to be used in drug stores or other places where refreshments are served”, to shave ice “for use in cold drinks”.
• Its objects include “a neat, sanitary, and efficient machine”. Knives work against a block held firmly in place, and the machine “will stop automatically when the block of ice has been entirely shaved”.
• Construction: a motor mounted vertically drives a ring gear; there is a glazed housing with a door for removing shaved ice; and a perforated platform with a drain spout.
• Dating issue. Popular accounts state that Bert patented a snow-cone machine in 1920. The patent located is from 1928–29. An earlier Bert patent was not found; this does not prove there was none.

US 2,515,923, Ernest C. Hansen of New Orleans, “Ice shaving machine” [11]

• Filed 2 November 1946; issued 18 July 1950.
• A power-operated machine with a rotary cutter “for shaving a block of ice into substantially fine particles”.
• It has a manually operated follower feeding the block “in a step by step movement toward the cutter”, and a manually operated pressure plate holding the block.
• Dating issue. The James Beard Foundation’s 2014 America’s Classics citation states that Hansen received a patent “in 1934” and opened a shop in 1939 [97]. In the Southern Foodways Alliance oral history, Hansen’s son and granddaughter say he “came up with his first ice-shaving machine” in 1934. They say his was “the first motor driven machine and that’s why he was able to get the patent”, without giving a patent date [12]. The only Hansen patent located is the 1946–50 one. The “1934 patent” is therefore unverified.

US 4,767,068, “Domestic ice shaver,” Chubu Industries, Inc. (inventor Toshio Ando) [9]

• Priority 10 June 1986; US filing 29 May 1987; issued 30 August 1988.
• Construction: a box-like base with a built-in motor whose drive shaft protrudes upward; a shaver case with a discharge port faced by the shaving blade; a rotary blade unit on the shaft topped by a cylindrical hopper; and a cover with a central openable lid.
• The claimed improvement is a shaving-blade block, detachable from outside the case. It is positioned by an adjusting screw, grooves and an engaging projection, and pushed outward by a spring. This allows the blade setting to be adjusted and the blade to be removed.
• It is a design for compact household machines, the type later sold widely for home use.

JP 特開2021-32461, 「氷削機」, Chubu Corporation. Published 1 March 2021, as listed by IP Force [100]. The full text was not read.

Not located. No patent was found for the Meiji-era shaver attributed to Murakami Hanzaburō. J-PlatPat’s Meiji-period records could not be searched through the tools available. That claim remains unverified.

E4.3 Operating procedure and troubleshooting: what the manuals say

The following synthesises three sets of operating instructions. Each instruction is attributed, because the sources are a manufacturer, a household-appliance manual and a rental business. These are manufacturer and trade instructions, not laboratory findings.

Choosing and tempering the ice.

• Use block ice, not plate ice. A rental shop’s guide for block-ice commercial machines says to use the 半貫目 block of about 13 cm (half of the standard 一貫目 block), as sold by ice dealers. The 板氷 (plate ice) sold in convenience stores and supermarkets “cannot be used” [115]. Chubu’s product page uses the same 13 cm 半貫目 definition [114].
• Let the surface clear. The rental guide says to use ice whose surface has thawed naturally and turned transparent. At that point “the ice becomes softer” and shaves well “even with the blade protruding only slightly” [115].
• Avoid frosted ice. Hard ice whose surface is white with frost “will not become fluffy kakigori”. It may damage the blade and in the worst case cannot be shaved at all [115].
• Do not pour water on the block. Pouring water on ice to speed thawing causes fine “spider-web” cracks and whitening. Such ice catches on the blade and breaks apart [115].
• Use fresh ice at home. The household manual (DTH-19/DTH-B2) tells users to fill its ice cups to about 80% and use the ice “as quickly as possible”. Stored ice develops frost over time and “is no longer suitable for kakigori”. It also says not to use loose ice cubes or hard commercial ice [101].
• Natural-ice trade practice. Nikko natural-ice shops let the ice loosen at room temperature, or hold it at 1–2 °C, before shaving (E2.3) [92].

Mounting and shaving.

• Centre the block. It must be centred on the blade and held by the spiked press plate. An off-centre block may fail to shave or shave obliquely, and ice may fly out [115].
• Commercial machines. Fineness is set by how far the blade protrudes. The rental guide’s principle is that “the key to delicious kakigori is to shave the ice as thinly as possible” [115].
• Household machine. The manual’s method for 「とろとろふわふわ」 texture is to turn the blade-height screw to its finest setting, where the blade is too low to cut. Then, while the machine runs, turn the screw slowly towards “coarse” until shaving begins, and stop there. Because the result changes with the condition of the ice, users should adjust frequently during shaving [101].

Operating limits stated by the household manual [101]:

• no more than 2 minutes of continuous operation (rated time 2 minutes);
• do not shave ice containing alcohol;
• residual ice left in the case after shaving is normal and must be discarded before adding new ice, or the new ice spins without being shaved.

Cleaning. After use, wash every part except the motor body and dry thoroughly. The manual warns that “especially when you have frozen and shaved something other than water”, leaving the machine unwashed “soon causes rust and mould” [101]. Section E6.1 gives the FDA Food Code’s equivalent requirement for ice-contact equipment.

E5. International entries: further documentation

This chapter extends Part I, Section 15. It adds only material from newly opened sources.

E5.1 Korea: the institutional background of ice

Silla and Goryeo. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (Academy of Korean Studies) gives the state history of ice in two entries [59, 60]:

• Silla.
  • In 505 (智證王 6), the king ordered ice to be stored for use.
  • The 『三國史記』 職官志 names an office for ice, the 氷庫典.
  • 『三國遺事』 mentions a 藏氷庫 under King 儒理.
  • The 『新唐書』 notes that in Silla “food is placed on ice in summer”.
  • The 빙고 entry dates the institution to “at the latest the first half of the 6th century”.
• Goryeo. The 『高麗史』 records that, when the ice store was opened, a pig was offered in sacrifice. In 1036 (靖宗 2), ice was distributed to seventeen officials once every ten days.

Joseon [60]:

• The two stores. The East Ice Store (東氷庫) at 豆毛浦 and the West Ice Store (西氷庫) at 屯地山 were established early in the dynasty. In 1405 they were placed under the Ministry of Rites.
• Where ice was cut. At first it was cut at 淵波昆, some 20 ri away, to avoid the dirty water of the city stream. From King Seongjong’s reign it was cut at nearby 楮子島.
• Quantities.

• Staff. The East store had 10 ice workers (氷夫) and the West 40. Nearby residents and soldiers were mobilised, and doctors stood by against drowning and frostbite.
• Recipients. Ice went to government offices, royal relatives and senior officials, retired senior officials over 70, patients of the 活人署 (public clinic) and prisoners of the 義禁府 and 典獄署.
• Distribution periods. Offices received ice from 15 May to 14 July; others during the sixth month. Ice for rites ran from 1 March to 霜降, and for the palace halls from 1 February to the end of the tenth month.
• Penalties and rites. If the stores ran out before mid-autumn, the officials in charge were punished. A 司寒祭 was offered to pray for thick winter ice.

Other details [59]:

• The stone ice house (石氷庫) of Gyeongju bears an inscription indicating rebuilding in 1741.
• The West Ice Store survived until 1898.
• The entry describes the corvée labour of storing ice as harsh.

What these entries do not say. Neither entry discusses a dish of shaved ice. The encyclopedia’s account is of ice storage and distribution, not of bingsu. It should not be cited as evidence of a pre-modern Korean shaved-ice dessert.

E5.2 Korea: bingsu in the colonial and post-war periods

Definition. The National Institute of Korean Language’s basic dictionary defines 빙수 (氷水) as “food made by finely grinding ice and placing boiled red beans, fruit, etc. on top” [61].

The National Folk Museum of Korea (curator 권선영, 2018) adds the following [68]:

• The Byeolgeongon essay. The museum quotes the essay 「빙수」 from the magazine 『별건곤』 at length. It describes a spoonful of red strawberry water on dazzling white ice, and the eater who closes both eyes as “the one who truly knows how to enjoy the taste of bingsu”. Its reference list gives 「氷水」, 『별건곤』 22 (August 1929), pp. 92–96, under the name 生影波. The Seoul Metropolitan Government magazine attributes the essay to 방정환 [44]. The museum does not name him, and whether 生影波 is his pen name was not verified.
• Flavours and toppings in the 1920s. Bingsu was flavoured with red strawberry water or orange water: mostly sugar water with colourings or fruit flavourings. Sugared red beans, fruit and egg were also added. Sweetening with honey or yeot (grain syrup) was gradually replaced by sugar.
• Supply. Ice plants established in the 1910s made edible ice widespread. Peddlers selling bingsu and 냉차 (iced tea) from boxes or portable stalls followed. In the 1930s, small motors allowed small-scale ice-making, and the ice-confection trade spread to provincial towns.
• Pictorial evidence. The museum reproduces a 빙수점 (bingsu shop) from the 『매일신보』 of 18 July 1917.
• Home machines. The museum holds a 1970s household “훼밀리 빙수기” by 금성산업사: a hand-cranked machine 27 cm high and 19 cm wide, set over a glass bowl 4 cm high and 12 cm across. Korea’s first refrigerator was produced by 금성사 (Goldstar) in 1965; the GR-120 is a registered cultural heritage item, no. 560. Freezer-equipped refrigerators allowed families to shave their own ice at home.

Fit with Part I. The 1910s–30s chronology agrees with An (2022), who found 73 relevant newspaper articles for 1897–1945, concentrated in the 1920s and 1930s [18].

E5.3 Taiwan: the ice industry and early shaved ice

Two accounts of the first ice plant.

• 1897. A 2019 Central News Agency report quotes the director of the 迪化二〇七 museum: Taiwan’s first ice plant was founded in 1897, “and Taiwanese fell in love with eating ice”. The report also features an 84-year-old vendor who still shaves ice by hand with a file (手工銼刀剉冰). He witnessed the price of 剉冰 rise from NT$1 to NT$45 [93].
• 1896. The popular-history site 故事 StoryStudio dates the first plant to 1896 [116]. A British merchant in Taiwan, 賀禮那, saw that ice shipped from Japan could sell at three times its price. He opened an ice plant with the Dadaocheng tea merchant 李春生 at 建昌街一丁目 (roughly today’s 西寧北路, Taipei).

The two sources do not agree, and neither gives a primary reference for the date. The founding year is disputed (1896 vs 1897).

The colonial ice trade according to StoryStudio [116]. The site cites period sources, including 『臺灣日日新報』 and 村崎長昶’s 『台北寫真帖』 (1913). These were not checked here.

• Firms. A 「台灣製冰株式會社」 was founded in Tokyo in October 1896 to ship ice to Japanese residents, then built a plant at 枋寮街 (today’s Zhonghe). In 1908 it raised capital for a Taipei works near the station. A rival, 「高砂製冰會社」, was founded in 1903 and reorganised in 1906.
• Keelung price war. 基隆製冰會社 began making ice in July 1910. Price competition there drove ice to 8 li (0.8 sen) per jin. The site compares this with average daily spending of 30.2 sen, from a 1909 cost-of-living survey. Keelung Ice also froze fruit syrups (orange, grape, apple, watermelon, banana, pear, berry, apricot) into the ice.
• Consolidation. From 1911 the Taiwan company signed agreements with the Keelung, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung firms, forming 新高製冰會社 from 1912. The site links this to the later 日東製冰 and 大日本製冰.
• Ice cream. It was produced by a Dadaocheng ice company from 1898. By 1911 there were “more than 500” ice-cream vendors in Dadaocheng.

Diaries quoted by StoryStudio [116]:

• The diary of 黃旺成 (1888–1979) records that in 1927, in Hsinchu, he and friends ate 「宇治冰」 (uji ice, matcha-flavoured shaved ice) after a banquet. The site infers from the name that it was “the traditional matcha shaved ice that came from Japan”. The diary also records buying ten sen of ice in 1913; eating a bowl of ice to bring down a fever in 1915; and an アイスモナカ (ice-cream wafer) given by a friend.
• The diarist 吳新榮 bought “a bowl of milk 雪花冰 for three 毛” at 佳里 in 1938.

An official warning, 1924. On 20 July 1924 the 『臺灣日日新報』 printed advice on “civilised ice-eating” (文明飲冰) by 中尾萬三, a doctor of pharmacy at the Central Research Institute. As summarised by StoryStudio, he advised [116]:

• not to gulp ice, to avoid chilling and diarrhoea;
• to attend to the cleanliness of premises and containers;
• to eat less ice with additives such as banana oil (蕉油, identified by the site as isoamyl or amyl acetate), litchi water, tartaric acid and unexplained colourings.

Assessment. These details fit Part I’s government and museum statements that Taiwanese ice-eating spread in the Japanese colonial era [45, 63]. The 宇治冰 diary entry is direct evidence of a Japanese-named shaved ice in 1920s Taiwan, at second hand. The original diary should be checked.

E5.4 Hawaiʻi: the history of ice before shave ice

Part I (15.1) relied on journalism for the history of shave ice in Hawaiʻi. The scholarly monograph by Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart, Cooling the Tropics (Duke University Press, 2022), was located; only its Introduction and table of contents were read [30]. The Introduction’s chapter summaries give this chronology:

• 1850. A shipment of ice arrived in Honolulu from Boston “after journeying for several months down the east coast of the Americas and across the Pacific Ocean”.
• 1850s. A “handful of other ice shipments” arrived in the following decade. The ice was sold in hotels and saloons where American sugar planters, European tourists and Hawaiian elites mingled, and from which makaʻāinana (the general populace) were excluded.
• 1860. The ice trade to Hawaiʻi failed.
• 1870s–1880s. Ice-making machines and factories were set up around Honolulu, and the Hawaiian monarchy served ices and ice creams at government events.
• 1898–1915. After annexation, the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act applied. After a 1911 cholera outbreak, when poi came under legal scrutiny, the newly appointed food commissioner chose instead to focus on raising the butterfat content of Honolulu’s ice cream.
• After 1959. Chapter 5, “Local Color, Rainbow Aesthetics, and the Racial Politics of Hawaiian Shave Ice”, examines media images of shave ice after statehood and today.

Hobart’s interpretation. Shave ice “has come to act as a metonymy for Hawaiian multiculturalism”, and is used “to accessorize American nationalism and Indigenous dispossession” [30]. A review in Society and Space summarises the chapter’s argument: the rainbow imagery of shave ice “displaces Kanaka Maoli claims to place”. It notes that Hobart includes Asian American settler colonialism in this analysis [23]. This is a scholarly interpretation, reported here, not adopted.

The Boston ice trade in Hobart’s notes.

• Discussing Thoreau’s Walden (1854), she recalls that its backdrop was the Tudor Ice Company’s employees “chiseling out ten thousand tons of pond water” to send, in Thoreau’s words, to “the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta”.
• Her note 27 dates Frederic Tudor’s first shipment to 1805, bound for St Pierre, Martinique [30]. Hosono also dates Tudor’s trade from 1805 and calls it the beginning of “Boston ice” [13].

What remains open. The book’s chapter 5 was not read. Whether Hobart identifies a first documented Japanese shave-ice seller, which Part I could not find, remains open.

E5.5 United States mainland: New Orleans sno-balls and Texas snow cones

The Hansen family’s oral history (Southern Foodways Alliance, interview of 7 August 2006 by Sara Roahen with Ashley and Gerard Hansen) [12]:

• Three products distinguished. A snow cone is “very coarse; the syrup will go right through”. A Sno-Bliz is very finely shaved, “almost hollow” ice, with syrup applied in layers “to get consistency throughout”.
• The machine. Street vendors with carts shaved block ice by hand with a tool “almost similar to a kitchen door planer”, which got “real dirty because of your hands and the sweat”. Ernest Hansen wanted “to make something for my children that is not touched by a hand”. He “got to work in 1933 and in 1934 he came up with his first ice-shaving machine”. At first it “was really made for just the family”.
• The business. Mary Hansen started it in 1936, with the machine on a table under a “Chinaball” tree and a cord run through the window for power. She charged two cents when hand-shaved sno-balls cost a penny. The stand opened in its permanent form in 1939 “and stayed open continuously for the next 67 years”.
• Later history. The original machine was flooded “under eight feet of water” in Hurricane Katrina. Ernest Hansen’s grave describes him as “inventor of the famous Hansen’s Sno-Bliz machine”.
• Status. These are family recollections, valuable for dates and practice. The patent issue is discussed in E4.2.

Snow cones and the State Fair of Texas. The claim that Samuel Bert invented the snow-cone machine at the State Fair of Texas in 1919–20 circulates widely online. The only Bert patent located (E4.2) was filed in 1928 and describes a machine for drug stores and soft drinks [10]. The fair-origin claim is unverified.

Nutrition data. USDA FoodData Central treats “Snow cone” as a standard food (FNDDS); see E7.2 [57].

E6. Food safety: provisions in detail

Part I (Section 18) summarised Japanese ice standards and the FDA Food Code. This chapter gives the specific provisions.

E6.1 United States: FDA Food Code 2022

The Food Code is a model code that states and localities adopt; it is not federal law in itself. Its ice-related provisions [42]:

• §3-202.16 Ice (Priority item). “Ice for use as a FOOD or a cooling medium shall be made from DRINKING WATER.” The Annex explains that “freezing does not invariably kill microorganisms; on the contrary, it may preserve them”. Ice used directly for consumption must be as safe as drinking water.
• §3-303.11 Ice used as exterior coolant, prohibited as ingredient (Priority item). After use to cool the outside of foods such as melons or fish, packaged foods such as canned beverages, or cooling coils and tubes of equipment, “ice may not be used as FOOD”. The Annex gives the example of ice used to display fish, which “could become contaminated with microbes present on the fish or packaging”.
• §3-304.12(E) In-use utensils. Between uses, utensils “such as ice scoops” may be stored “in a clean, protected location” if used only with food that is not time/temperature-controlled for safety.
• §4-602.11(E)(4) Cleaning frequency. Ice bins, beverage nozzles and the enclosed components of ice makers must be cleaned “at a frequency specified by the manufacturer” or, without specifications, “at a frequency necessary to preclude accumulation of soil or mold”. The Annex adds that, absent manufacturer specifications, “the person in charge should develop a cleaning regimen”.
• §4-204.17 Ice units, separation of drains. “Liquid waste drain lines may not pass through an ice machine or ice storage bin.”

For a shaved-ice stand, these provisions cover the source water, the separation of display ice from shaving ice, the storage of scoops, and the cleaning of the shaver’s food-contact parts. Section E4.3 gives the household manual’s parallel instruction to wash and dry all parts.

E6.2 Japan: the 2021 reorganisation of business licences

Japan’s Food Sanitation Act was amended with effect from 1 June 2021 [55, 56]:

• Permits reorganised. The licensed business categories, not reviewed “since 昭和47年 (1972)”, were reorganised from 34 into 32. A notification (届出) system was created for lower-risk businesses.
• 氷雪販売業 (ice sales) moved from permit to notification. It is listed among the “permit categories considered low-risk” with 乳類販売業 and some meat and fish sales [55].
• 氷雪製造業 (ice manufacture) remains a permit category. It is item 17 in Fukushima City’s list [56].
• Transitional rule. Businesses already operating in a category that moved to notification were not required to file a notification [56].

The sources consulted do not say which licence applies to a shop or stall serving kakigori. Part I’s food-safety section should not be read as answering that. Local health centres apply the national categories.

E6.3 Historical hygiene measures outside Japan

• Taiwan, 1924. 中尾萬三’s newspaper advice on clean premises and avoiding additives (E5.3) [116].
• Hawaiʻi, 1906–1911. Pure-food regulation reached ice cream after annexation (E5.4) [30].
• Singapore. The campaigns against ice balls from the 1920s are covered in Part I, Section 15.6 [65].
• Korea. Concern over saccharin in colonial-era bingsu is covered in Part I [18].

E7. Nutrition: composition data

The values below are copied from the official databases for the stated items. Arithmetic examples are labelled as calculations. No health claims are made.

E7.1 Japan: Standard Tables of Food Composition (八訂 増補2023)

Values per 100 g edible portion [43, 58]:

Further values for condensed milk (13013): sodium 96 mg, calcium 260 mg, salt equivalent 0.2 g [58].

Calculation (not from the database). At these values, 30 g of sweetened condensed milk supplies about 94 kcal, and 30 g of 黒蜜 about 60 kcal. The ice adds none.

E7.2 United States: FoodData Central

USDA’s survey database (FNDDS) gives values per 100 g [57]:

Note. The FNDDS records for snow cone and Italian ice carry identical values, which suggests that the database models both with the same recipe. They should not be read as independent measurements of either dessert. A branded “snow cone syrup” record (1913474) lists 119 kcal and 30.5 g sugars per 100 g, as declared by the brand owner [57].

E8. Myths and disputed claims

E9. Additions to the timeline

E10. Additions to the glossary

23. Bibliography

Grouped by category. Numbers correspond to the inline citations. “n.d.” = no date shown on the page. All online sources accessed October 2026.

Primary sources

1. Sei Shōnagon 清少納言. 『枕草子』第42段「あてなるもの」 (Makura no sōshi, section 42, “Elegant/refined things”), original text with modern Japanese translation and notes. 「古典に親しむ」 n-koten.sakura.ne.jp. https://n-koten.sakura.ne.jp/makura/041/makura042.htm. Accessed Oct 2026.
2. Sei Shōnagon 清少納言. 「枕草子『あてなるもの』原文」 (original text with readings), posted by 古典愛好家. Manapedia (マナペディア). https://manapedia.jp/text/2618. Accessed Oct 2026.
3. 「枕草子『あてなるもの』」 (variant text 「削氷のあまづらに入りて…」 with notes), high-school classical-Japanese study pages 高校古文. biglobe. https://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~koukoukokugo/2_kobunhen/5zuihitu/1makuranosousi/2518atenarumono.htm. Accessed Oct 2026.
4. 『日本書紀』巻第十一 仁徳天皇紀 (Nihon shoki, book 11, reign of Nintoku; compiled 720), kanbun text with kundoku. Transcription by 上田 (hjueda), 「古典籍総合データベース」 personal site. https://hjueda.on.coocan.jp/koten/shoki27.htm. Accessed Oct 2026.
5. 『延喜式』巻第四十 主水司 (Engishiki, book 40, Bureau of Water and Ice 主水司; completed 延長5年/927), transcribed text. 「久遠の絆 古典テキスト」 miko.org. https://miko.org/~uraki/kuon/furu/text/rituryou/engi/engi40.htm. Accessed Oct 2026.
6. Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties 奈良文化財研究所. 「木簡庫」 record 6AFITF11000276 (長屋王家木簡, 「都祁氷進始日」). https://mokkanko.nabunken.go.jp/ja/6AFITF11000276. DOI 10.24484/mokkanko.6AFITF11000276. Accessed Oct 2026.
7. 鈴木牧之 Suzuki Bokushi (編撰), 京山人百樹 Kyōzan (刪定). 『北越雪譜』二編 (Hokuetsu seppu, part 2; text first published 1841–42). Aozora Bunko 青空文庫. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001930/files/58401_70229.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
8. Morse, Edward S. Japan Day by Day, 1877, 1878–79, 1882–83, vol. 2. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 256 (chapter XX, “Japan in 1882”). Full text at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/japandaybyday18721917mors/japandaybyday18721917mors_djvu.txt. Accessed Oct 2026.
9. US Patent 4,767,068, “Domestic ice shaver,” assignee Chubu Industries, Inc.; filed 29 May 1987, issued 30 Aug 1988. Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/US4767068A/en ; FreePatentsOnline https://www.freepatentsonline.com/4767068.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
10. Bert, Samuel (Dallas, Texas). US Patent 1,700,819, “Ice shaving and cutting machine”; filed 27 Apr 1928, issued 5 Feb 1929. Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/US1700819A/en. Accessed Oct 2026.
11. Hansen, Ernest C. (New Orleans). US Patent 2,515,923, “Ice shaving machine”; filed 2 Nov 1946, issued 18 July 1950. Google Patents https://patents.google.com/patent/US2515923A/en. Accessed Oct 2026.
12. Southern Foodways Alliance. Oral history interview with Ashley and Gerard Hansen, Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, New Orleans. Interviewer Sara Roahen, 7 Aug 2006 (project New Orleans Eats/Guardians of Tradition). Transcript PDF https://www.southernfoodways.org/wp-content/uploads/Sno-Ball_Hansen%E2%80%99s-Sno-Bliz.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.

Academic

13. 細野明義 Hosono Akiyoshi (Professor Emeritus, Shinshu University). 「アイスクリームの日本昔話―日本アイスクリームの黎明期を追って―」 (“Japanese old tales of ice cream: tracing the dawn of ice cream in Japan”). PDF, Japan Ice Cream Association 日本アイスクリーム協会, n.d. (file metadata indicates 2018). https://www.icecream.or.jp/assets/iceworld/data/pdf/oldstory.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
14. 吉海直人 Yoshikai Naoto (Doshisha Women’s College). 「吉海直人の古典講座（129）―『削り氷』について」 (“Classical lecture no. 129: on kezurihi”). 新島八重顕彰会, 15 July 2023. https://yaenk.sakura.ne.jp/archives/kotenkouza/5392. Accessed Oct 2026.
15. 奈良女子大学 Nara Women’s University (生活文化学 / 文化史 project). 「平安時代の菓子」 (“Confectionery of the Heian period”). n.d. https://www.nara-wu.ac.jp/grad-GP-life/bunkashi_hp/tougashi/heian_kashi.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
16. 奈良女子大学 Nara Women’s University. 「甘葛煎（あまづらせん）を再現しました」 (“We reconstructed amazurasen”). University news, 14 January 2016. http://www.nara-wu.ac.jp/news/H27news/20160114/20160114.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
17. 竹井巖 Takei Iwao. 「金沢の氷室と雪氷利用」 (“Ice houses and the use of snow and ice in Kanazawa”). 『北陸大学紀要』 (Bulletin of Hokuriku University) 28, 2004, pp. 49–62. https://www.hokuriku-u.ac.jp/about/campus/libraryDATA/kiyo28/yaku4.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
18. An, HyoJin 안효진. “A study of the Modernity of the Shaved ice: Focusing on newspaper articles from 1897 to 1945.” Journal of the Korea Contents Association 22, no. 11, 2022, starting p. 126. DOI 10.5392/jkca.2022.22.11.126. (Only the abstract was consulted; full page range not verified.) Accessed Oct 2026.
19. Pakiam, Geoffrey Kevin, and Michael Yeo Chai Ming, with Fiona Lim Pei Wen, Gayathrii Nathan, Phoon Yuen Ming, Toffa Abdul Wahed and Young Wei Ping. Culinary Biographies: Charting Singapore’s History Through Cooking and Consumption. NHB HRG-024 Final Report (National Heritage Board Heritage Research Grant), October 2020, pp. 25–29. ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/NHB-HRG-024-Culinary-Biographies-Final-Report-20201018a.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
20. 竹井巖 Takei Iwao, 神田健三 Kanda Kenzō, 小川弘司 Ogawa Hiroshi. 「石川県の氷室（雪室）の調査リスト」 (“List of himuro (snow cellars) checked on documents and field works in Ishikawa”). 『北陸大学紀要』 33 (2009): 109–124. https://www.hokuriku-u.ac.jp/library/libraryDATA/kiyo33/kyou4.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
21. 好村滋行 Komura Shigeyuki (Tokyo Metropolitan University). 「かき氷騒動：甘くない砂糖水の話」 (“The kakigori affair: a not-so-sweet story of sugar water”). 『物性研究』 80(2) (May 2003): 349ff. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/97544 ; PDF via NDL https://dl.ndl.go.jp/view/prepareDownload?contentNo=1&itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F10940455. Accessed Oct 2026.
22. 奥田楓菜 Okuda Fūna, 菊池司 Kikuchi Tsukasa (Tokyo University of Technology). 「かき氷のビジュアルシミュレーション」. 画像電子学会第308回研究会講演予稿, 2024. J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/wiieej/23.04/0/23.04_33/_article/-char/ja. Accessed Oct 2026.
23. Society and Space (journal website). “Cooling the Tropics Review” (book review, vol. 41 issue 4 forum). https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/cooling-the-tropics-review. Accessed Oct 2026.

Books (cited at second hand)

24. Morris, Ivan (trans.). The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. Translation wording quoted from [88] and [89]; publisher and page of the printed edition not verified by this author.
25. McKinney, Meredith (trans.). The Pillow Book (Sei Shōnagon). Translation wording quoted from [90]; publisher and page of the printed edition not verified by this author.
26. 太田久好 Ōta Hisayoshi (編). 『横浜沿革誌』 (Yokohama enkakushi). 石井光太郎 校訂, 有隣堂 Yūrindō, 1970 (reprint). Quoted at second hand from [72]; not consulted directly.
27. Osawa, Kiyoshi. A Japanese in the Philippines. 1981. Quoted at second hand from [84]; not consulted directly.
29. 日置謙 Hioki Ken (編). 『加能郷土辞彙』 (Dictionary of Kaga and Noto local history). 金沢, 1979 (reprint), p. 748, entry 「氷室の朔日」. Quoted at second hand from [37]; not consulted directly.
30. Hobart, Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani. Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022 (Dec.). Publisher page with table of contents: https://dukeupress.edu/cooling-the-tropics ; free Introduction PDF: https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com:443/f7ca9afb-82c2-002a-a423-84e111d5b498/492d5942-1821-42b0-8ad3-a7bccc1f7bdc/978-1-4780-1919-0_601.pdf. Only the Introduction and table of contents were read. Accessed Oct 2026.

Government / Institutional

31. KATO Kyoko. “Kakigori: A Sweet Summer Treat.” Highlighting Japan, August 2021. Government of Japan (Cabinet Office, Public Relations). https://www.gov-online.go.jp/eng/publicity/book/hlj/html/202108/202108_03_en.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
32. 函館市 Hakodate City. 『函館市史』通説編第2巻 (History of Hakodate, general narrative vol. 2), section on 函館氷 (Hakodate ice). Digital edition, ADEAC. https://adeac.jp/hakodate-city/texthtml/d100020/mp000010-100020/ht015100. Accessed Oct 2026.
33. 函館市 Hakodate City. 『函館市史』通説編第2巻, following section (Nakagawa’s monopoly application and later years). ADEAC. https://adeac.jp/hakodate-city/texthtml/d100020/mp000010-100020/ht015110. Accessed Oct 2026.
34. 函館市文化・スポーツ振興財団 Hakodate City Culture and Sports Promotion Foundation. 「中川嘉兵衛」, 函館ゆかりの人物伝 (biographies of people connected with Hakodate). n.d. https://www.zaidan-hakodate.com/jimbutsu/05_na/05-nakagawaka.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
35. 奈良県 Nara Prefecture. 「ルート解説」 (route notes incl. 復元氷室 and 氷室神社), 歩く・なら walking portal. n.d. https://www.pref.nara.lg.jp/site/aruku/1277.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
36. 文京区 Bunkyo City. Page on the 氷室 of the Kaga domain residence and 7/1 氷室の日 (local history). n.d. https://www.city.bunkyo.lg.jp/b014/p004200.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
37. National Diet Library 国立国会図書館, Collaborative Reference Database レファレンス協同データベース. 「加賀藩の上屋敷にあったとされる『氷室』について次のことを知りたい。」 Answer by 埼玉県立久喜図書館 (record 埼熊-2010-039), created 18 June 2010. https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000072974&page=ref_view. Accessed Oct 2026.
38. 金沢市観光協会 Kanazawa City Tourism Association. 「氷室開き」 (event page). n.d. https://www.kanazawa-kankoukyoukai.or.jp/event/detail_30342.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
39. 農林水産省 Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). 「白熊 鹿児島県」, うちの郷土料理 (Our regional cuisines). n.d. https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/k_ryouri/search_menu/menu/shirokuma_kagoshima.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
40. 消費者庁 Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA). 「氷雪」 (component and manufacturing standards for ice), extract from 食品、添加物等の規格基準 (Specifications and Standards for Foods, Food Additives, etc., 昭和34年厚生省告示第370号). PDF. https://www.caa.go.jp/policies/policy/standards_evaluation/other/category/assets/000832225.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
41. 消費者庁 Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA). 「氷菓」 (standards for frozen confections), extract from 食品、添加物等の規格基準. PDF. https://www.caa.go.jp/policies/policy/standards_evaluation/other/category/assets/0000094498.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
42. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Food Code 2022. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2022 (file dated 18 Jan 2023). §§ 3-202.16, 3-303.11, 3-304.12 and Annex 3. https://www.fda.gov/files/food/published/FDA-FoodCode2022-FullDocument-01182023_0.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
43. 文部科学省 MEXT. 「食品成分データベース」 (Food Composition Database; 日本食品標準成分表). Entries: 上白糖 https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=3_03003_7 ; 果糖ぶどう糖液糖 https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=3_03027_7 ; メープルシロップ https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=3_03023_7 ; 加糖練乳 https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=13_13013_7 ; つぶし練りあん https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=4_04006_7 . Accessed Oct 2026.
44. 박찬일 Park Chan-il. 「뜨거운 여름, 차가운 빙수」 (“Hot summer, cold bingsu”). 『서울사랑』 (Seoul Sarang), Seoul Metropolitan Government, July 2020. https://love.seoul.go.kr/articles/7515. Accessed Oct 2026.
45. 農業部 Ministry of Agriculture (Taiwan), 農業知識入口網. 「果與冰的甜蜜相遇」 (“The sweet meeting of fruit and ice”). Posted 108/08/06 (6 Aug 2019). https://kmweb.moa.gov.tw/theme_data.php?id=55258&sub_theme=agri_life&theme=news. Accessed Oct 2026.
46. 栃木県観光物産協会 Tochigi Prefectural Tourism Association. 「日光の天然氷」 spot page, とちぎ旅ネット. n.d. https://www.tochigiji.or.jp/spot/s11785. Accessed Oct 2026.
47. Regione Siciliana, Visit Sicily. “Sicilian granita, the best in the world.” n.d. https://www.visitsicily.info/en/sicilian-granita/. Accessed Oct 2026.
48. 神奈川県観光協会 Kanagawa Tourism Association. 「アイスクリーム発祥の碑（太陽の母子像）」 spot page, 観光かながわNOW. n.d. https://www.kanagawa-kankou.or.jp/spot/404. Accessed Oct 2026.
49. 奈良市観光協会 Nara City Tourism Association. 「氷室神社」 spot page. https://narashikanko.or.jp/spot/detail_10056.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
50. 農林水産省 MAFF. 「かき氷 奈良県」, うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/k_ryouri/search_menu/menu/kaki_goori_nara.html ; English version “Kakigori (Shaved ice)”: https://www.maff.go.jp/e/policies/market/k_ryouri/search_menu/3672/index.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
51. 天理市観光協会 Tenri City Tourism Association. 「氷室神社」 (Fukusumi). https://kanko-tenri.jp/tourist-spots/east/himurojinja/. Accessed Oct 2026.
52. 天理市観光協会 Tenri City Tourism Association. 「氷室跡」 (Fukusumi ice-house remains). https://kanko-tenri.jp/tourist-spots/east/himuroato/. Accessed Oct 2026.
53. 湯涌温泉観光協会 Yuwaku Onsen Tourism Association. 「氷室」. https://yuwaku.gr.jp/himuro/. Accessed Oct 2026.
54. 栃木県立図書館 Tochigi Prefectural Library, via NDL Collaborative Reference Database. 「日光の氷室（氷の貯蔵庫）について知りたい。」 (管理番号 tr758, 2021). https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000309279&page=ref_view. Accessed Oct 2026.
55. 厚生労働省 MHLW. 「営業届出制度の創設と営業許可制度の見直し」 (slides on the 2021 licensing reform). https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11130500/000706466.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.
56. 福島市 Fukushima City. 「食品衛生法の改正について～「営業許可業種」が変わります～」. https://www.city.fukushima.fukushima.jp/soshiki/9/1046/2/1/3014.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
57. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central (queried via the FDC API, Oct 2026): FNDDS “Snow cone” (FDC ID 2710323), “Snow cone, no sugar added” (2710324), “Italian Ice” (2710317), “Italian Ice, no sugar added” (2710318); Branded “Snow cone syrup” (1913474). https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/. Accessed Oct 2026.
58. 文部科学省 MEXT. 食品成分データベース (日本食品標準成分表（八訂）増補2023年), entries 13013 加糖練乳, 03014 氷糖みつ, 03029 黒蜜, 03022 はちみつ, 03023 メープルシロップ, 04001–04003 あずき, 07012 いちご 生, 16035 抹茶, 13003 普通牛乳, 03003 上白糖. e.g. https://fooddb.mext.go.jp/details/details.pl?ITEM_NO=13_13013_7. Accessed Oct 2026.
59. 이성우 Lee Sung-woo. 「얼음」 (Ice). 『한국민족문화대백과사전』 (Encyclopedia of Korean Culture), Academy of Korean Studies; written 1995, last revised 7 Feb 2023. https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0036201. Accessed Oct 2026.
60. 윤서석 Yoon Seo-seok. 「빙고」 (Binggo, ice store/office). 『한국민족문화대백과사전』, Academy of Korean Studies; written 1995, last revised 29 May 2026. https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0025302. Accessed Oct 2026.
61. 국립국어원 National Institute of Korean Language. 『한국어기초사전』 entry 「빙수 (氷水)」. https://krdict.korean.go.kr/kor/dicSearch/SearchView?ParaWordNo=60442. Accessed Oct 2026.

Museum

62. Japanese American National Museum. “History.” Textured Lives: Japanese Immigrant Clothing from the Plantations of Hawai`i (exhibition, 28 Feb–22 Aug 2010). https://www.janm.org/exhibits/texturedlives/history. Accessed Oct 2026.
63. 魏雅蘋 Wei Ya-ping. 「臺灣夏日古早味」 (“Old-time summer tastes of Taiwan”). 『幼獅少年』524 (June 2020), pp. 8–11; republished on 國立臺灣歷史博物館典藏網 (National Museum of Taiwan History collections site). https://collections.nmth.gov.tw/article.aspx?a=223. Accessed Oct 2026.
64. National Museum of Singapore / National Heritage Board. “‘Ice-Kacang’ machine,” 1950s–1970s, accession no. 2000-03626. Roots.gov.sg. https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1134329. Accessed Oct 2026.
65. Pakiam, Geoffrey K. “Fire Ice and Social Change: The Evolution of Singapore’s Food Culture.” MUSE SG, January 2023. National Heritage Board, Roots.gov.sg. https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/fire-ice-and-social-change/story. Accessed Oct 2026.
66. 保科優 Hoshina Yū. 「ふわふわかき氷のひみつ」 (“The secret of fluffy kakigori”). 日本科学未来館 Miraikan (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) blog, 27 August 2019. https://blog.miraikan.jst.go.jp/articles/20190827post-3.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
67. 那須烏山市 Nasukarasuyama City, 那須烏山デジタル博物館 (digital museum). 「氷かきのカンナ」 (ice-shaving plane), folk-material record P-5246, 26 March 2024. https://www.city.nasukarasuyama.lg.jp/digital-museum/folklore-materials/daily-tools/page005246.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
68. 권선영 Kwon Seon-young (curator, 국립민속박물관 National Folk Museum of Korea). 「두 눈이 스르르 감기는 맛, 빙수기와 빙수그릇」. NFM webzine, 28 June 2018. https://webzine.nfm.go.kr/2018/06/28/두-눈이-스르르-감기는-맛-빙수기와-빙수그릇/. Accessed Oct 2026.

Religious institutions (shrines)

69. 氷室神社 Himuro Jinja (Nara, 奈良市春日野町). 「氷室神社について」 (About the shrine: 祭神, ご由緒, 献氷祭). https://himurojinja.jp/about/. Accessed Oct 2026.
70. 氷室神社 Himuro Jinja (Nara). Official top page (functions as patron of refrigeration and ice trades; 氷献灯, 氷みくじ, かき氷献氷). https://himurojinja.jp/. Accessed Oct 2026.
71. 氷室神社 Himuro Jinja (Nara). 『なら氷室』 No. 3 (平成15年5月1日発行 / 1 May 2003), 「なら氷室神社の由来と歴史」. https://himurojinja.jp/backnumber/221/. Accessed Oct 2026.

Historical (trade bodies and company histories)

72. 神奈川県氷雪販売業生活衛生同業組合 Kanagawa Prefecture Ice Retailers’ Sanitation Trade Association. 「氷の由来 〜氷業の始まり〜」 (“Origins of ice: the beginning of the ice trade”). n.d. https://kanagawa-icenet.or.jp/featured_contents/ice_history/ice_history-1/. Accessed Oct 2026.
73. 同上. 「氷の由来 〜日本における天然氷事業〜」 (“Natural-ice business in Japan”). n.d. https://kanagawa-icenet.or.jp/featured_contents/ice_history/ice_history-2/. Accessed Oct 2026.
74. 同上. 「氷の由来 〜日本の機械製氷の歴史〜」 (“History of machine-made ice in Japan”). n.d. https://kanagawa-icenet.or.jp/featured_contents/ice_history/ice_history-3/. Accessed Oct 2026.
75. 日本アイスクリーム協会 Japan Ice Cream Association. 「日本のアイスクリームの歴史」 (history of ice cream in Japan; Machida Fusazō). n.d. https://www.icecream.or.jp/iceworld/history/japan/. Accessed Oct 2026.
76. 日本アイスクリーム協会 Japan Ice Cream Association. Q&A no. 4 (classification of アイスクリーム類 and 氷菓). n.d. https://www.icecream.or.jp/iceworld/qa/04.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
77. ニチレイ Nichirei Corporation. 「氷と暮らしの物語 ＜第1回＞」 (Stories of ice and daily life, part 1: Nakagawa Kahei and Hakodate ice), supervised by 猪上徳雄. 24 January 2022. https://www.nichirei.co.jp/koras/ice_history/001.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
78. ニチレイ Nichirei Corporation. 「氷と暮らしの物語 ＜第3回＞ 横浜で発祥した機械製氷」 (Machine ice originated in Yokohama). 24 January 2022. https://www.nichirei.co.jp/koras/ice_history/003.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
79. ニチレイ Nichirei Corporation. 「氷と暮らしの物語 ＜第4回＞ 天然氷と人工氷の販売合戦」 (The sales battle between natural and artificial ice). 24 January 2022. https://www.nichirei.co.jp/koras/ice_history/004.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
80. ニチレイ Nichirei Corporation. 『ニチレイ75年史』 (75-year company history), digital edition p. 32. https://www.nichirei.co.jp/75thhistory/pageindices/index32.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
81. 小野未稀 Ono Miki (虎屋文庫 Toraya Bunko, research chief). 「(7) どのように削った？かき氷 No.219」 (“How was it shaved? Kakigori”). あじわいアーカイブ, 全国銘産菓子工業協同組合. n.d. https://www.zenkokumeika.com/column/1797/. Accessed Oct 2026.
82. 一般社団法人日本かき氷協会 Japan Kakigori Association. 「沿革」 (History of the association). n.d. http://kakigoori.or.jp/history. Accessed Oct 2026.

Journalism and literary press

83. Severson, Kim (The New York Times). “A history of shave ice in Hawaii.” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 23 August 2016. https://www.staradvertiser.com/2016/08/23/food/a-history-of-shave-ice-in-hawaii/. Accessed Oct 2026.
84. Ocampo, Ambeth R. “Japanese origins of the Philippine ‘halo-halo’.” Philippine Daily Inquirer (Looking Back column), 30 August 2012. https://opinion.inquirer.net/35790/japanese-origins-of-the-philippine-halo-halo. Accessed Oct 2026.
85. Hernandez, Cesar. “How Kakigori, The Sweet Japanese Shaved Ice, Quietly Took Over LA.” LAist, 2 November 2021. https://laist.com/news/food/how-kakigori-the-sweet-japanese-shaved-ice-quietly-took-over-la. Accessed Oct 2026.
86. 日本食糧新聞 Nihon Shokuryō Shinbun (electronic edition). Item on かき氷の日 (Kakigori Day, 25 July). n.d. https://news.nissyoku.co.jp/today/578155. Accessed Oct 2026.
87. 株式会社ぐるなび Gurunavi, Inc. Press release (PR TIMES) on the joint study by 東京工業大学 大河誠司, 東京海洋大学 鈴木徹・小川廣男 and ぐるなび総研 on ice crystal structure and kakigori texture, 17 July 2015. https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000516.000001511.html. (Company press release; not a peer-reviewed paper.) Accessed Oct 2026.
88. things magazine, no. 11 (winter 1999–2000). “Elegant Things” (extract from Ivan Morris’s translation of The Pillow Book). https://thingsmagazine.net/text/t11/elegant.htm. Accessed Oct 2026.
89. Lindenberg, Rebecca. “A Poetry of Perception: Four studies for teaching young people.” Poetry Foundation, 14 December 2015 (quotes Ivan Morris’s translation). https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70285/a-poetry-of-perception. Accessed Oct 2026.
90. Literary Hub. “Learning to Appreciate the Small Things From a 1,000-Year-Old Japanese Writer” (quotes Meredith McKinney’s translation). https://lithub.com/learning-to-appreciate-the-small-things-from-a-500-year-old-japanese-writer/. Accessed Oct 2026.
91. ミツカン水の文化センター Mizkan Water Culture Center. 「冬の結晶を夏にいただく 日光 天然の氷」, 機関誌『水の文化』 53号 (食の風土記; interview 22 Dec 2015). https://www.mizu.gr.jp/kikanshi/no53/12.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
92. 読売新聞 / 旅行読売. 「天然氷の蔵元が集まる日光でかき氷の食べ比べ」. 11 July 2024. https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/hobby/travel/ryokou-select/20240711-OYT8T50006/. Accessed Oct 2026.
93. 屈享平 et al. 「沒有冷氣的時代 迪化二Ｏ七重現台灣食涼文化」. 中央社 Central News Agency (Taiwan), 18 July 2019. https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acul/201907180201.aspx. Accessed Oct 2026.

Culinary

94. Larousse Cocina. “Raspado.” Diccionario enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana. n.d. https://laroussecocina.mx/palabra/raspado/. Accessed Oct 2026.
95. Southern Foodways Alliance. “New Orleans Sno-Balls” (oral-history project). 29 May 2011. https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/new-orleans-sno-balls/. Accessed Oct 2026.
96. Pelta-Pauls, Maggie. “Maryland Eats: The Origins of the Baltimore Snowball.” Preservation Maryland, 27 July 2017. https://preservationmaryland.org/history-baltimore-snowball/. Accessed Oct 2026.
97. James Beard Foundation. “Awards Watch: Meet the 2014 America’s Classics.” 2014. https://www.jamesbeard.org/stories/awards-watch-meet-the-2014-americas-classics. Accessed Oct 2026.
102. 天文館むじゃき Tenmonkan Mujaki (business). 「むじゃきについて」 (About us; origin of 白熊). https://mujyaki.co.jp/about/. Business claim. Accessed Oct 2026.
103. 株式会社中部コーポレーション Chubu Corporation (business). 「沿革」 (Company history). https://chubu-net.co.jp/company/history/. Accessed Oct 2026.
104. 株式会社中部コーポレーション Chubu Corporation. 「初雪」 product page (氷削機). https://www.chubu-net.co.jp/food/products/01hatsuyuki/. Accessed Oct 2026.
105. 株式会社池永鉄工 Ikenaga Iron Works (business). 「沿革」 (Company history). https://ikenaga-iw.jp/company/history/. Accessed Oct 2026.
106. 松月氷室 Shōgetsu Himuro (business, Nikko natural-ice maker). Official site. https://shogetsuhimuro.com/. Business claim. Accessed Oct 2026.
107. オリオンビール Orion Breweries (corporate story site), オリオンストーリー編集部. 「ひんやり冷たい!? 沖縄の『ぜんざい』は夏の風物詩」. 12 August 2022. https://www.orionbeer.co.jp/story/okinawa-zenzai/. Accessed Oct 2026.
108. 探検コム Tanken.com. 「製氷・冷凍・冷蔵庫の歴史」 (popular history site). n.d. https://tanken.com/reizo.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
109. Wikipedia (Japanese). 「かき氷」. Tertiary source, used only to identify claims needing verification. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/かき氷. Accessed Oct 2026.
110. Wikipedia (Japanese). 「白くま (氷菓)」. Tertiary source, used only to identify competing origin claims. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/白くま_(氷菓). Accessed Oct 2026.
111. Wikipedia (Japanese). 「函館氷」. Tertiary source. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/函館氷. Accessed Oct 2026.
112. ぐるなび総研 Gurunavi Research Institute. NEWS LETTER, 17 July 2015 (study plus member survey). Original URL http://gri.gnavi.co.jp/insight/2015/pdf/20150717.pdf did not load; read in a third-party copy at https://happylibus.com/doc/60006/2015-07-17-%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E5%B7%A5%E6%A5%AD%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6. Accessed Oct 2026.
113. 池永鉄工株式会社 Ikenaga Tekkō (business). Official top page (news items 2026; SWAN since 昭和25年). https://ikenaga-iw.jp/. Accessed Oct 2026.
114. 株式会社中部コーポレーション Chubu Corporation (business). 「ブロックアイススライサー（HA）（HB）」 product page (BASYS HB750A, HB600A specifications). https://www.chubu-net.co.jp/food/products/01hatsuyuki/detail.php?num=01_02. Accessed Oct 2026.
115. かき氷機レンタル専門店 (rental business). 「〈電動〉ブロック氷用 業務用かき氷機 使用方法」. https://www.kakigooriki.com/howto_m.html. Accessed Oct 2026.
116. 故事 StoryStudio (popular-history site). 「大口吃冰！來一場夏日臺灣尋冰的時空旅行」. n.d. https://storystudio.tw/article/gushi/a-bowl-of-shaved-ice. Accessed Oct 2026.
117. Mercer’s Japanese Snow (השלג היפני של מרסר; “Kakigori Israel”) (Hebrew; events kakigori stand). https://www.kakigori.co.il/. Accessed Oct 2026.
118. Mercer’s Japanese Snow / Kakigori Israel. @kakigori.israel. https://www.instagram.com/kakigori.israel/. Accessed Oct 2026.
119. snowcone.co.il. 「דוכן סנו קון לאירועים | מה זה קקיגורי」 (Guide page on snow-cone and kakigori stands for events). https://www.snowcone.co.il/. Accessed Oct 2026.

Technical / Scientific

98. Moberg, Daniel R., Peter K. Straight, Christopher Knight, and Francesco Paesani. “Molecular Origin of the Vibrational Structure of Ice Ih.” Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 8, no. 12, 2017. DOI 10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01106. Accepted manuscript at OSTI: https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1373299. (Page range not verified.) Accessed Oct 2026.
99. ぐるなび総研 Gurunavi Research Institute. 「2014年 今年の一皿」 (Dish of the Year 2014; includes 今年の食流 高級かき氷). https://gri.gnavi.co.jp/dishoftheyear/2014/. Accessed Oct 2026.
100. IP Force 知財ポータル. 「株式会社中部コーポレーションの特許出願公開一覧 2021年」 (lists 特開2021-32461 「氷削機」, published 1 Mar 2021). https://ipforce.jp/applicant-22564/2021/publication. Accessed Oct 2026.
101. 「メガ盛りふわふわ電動かき氷器 DTH-19/DTH-B2 取扱説明書・保証書」 (household electric ice shaver instruction manual; the manual links to doshisha-marche.jp). https://do-cooking.com/manual/pdf/kakigoori_DTH.pdf. Accessed Oct 2026.