Matcha Kakigori (抹茶かき氷)

Kakigori is summer made visible. A small mountain of shaved ice, a green pour of matcha, and then you eat before it forgets itself. People add anko, condensed milk, shiratama, fruit, and all sorts of busy things. Here we won't. The point is the matcha, so there is nothing to hide it behind.

The first secret is the powder. Fresh matcha smells green and sweet, almost grassy, and its color is lively, not tired olive. A stale tin announces itself at once in this dish, because cold dulls sweetness and leaves bitterness standing in the room like an overdressed guest. Buy a good fresh tin, sift it, and whisk it first into a smooth paste so the syrup pours cleanly instead of freckling the ice with dry clumps.

The second secret is the ice. Kakigori should be shaved, not crushed. A hand-cranked kakigōriki, the old ice shaver, makes flakes light enough to collapse under the spoon. An electric shaved-ice machine can do honest work too. A food processor gives you hard little pebbles, and pebbles do not know how to drink matcha.

Serve it at once, preferably outside, where this dish belongs to the hottest part of the year. Keep the bowl cold, build the ice high but loose, pour the syrup in three passes, and leave it alone. This is honmono at its plainest: good matcha, clean ice, and no decoration pretending to be flavor.