This wagashi from a historic shinise store in Kyoto, Kameyama Yoshinaga, is reminiscent of fireflies on verdant green foliage of early summer.

Fireflies: Quickly Fading Beauty
Live while you can. Japanese love something fragile and rare and that is in season for a short period. The cherry blossom is the very best example, but fireflies are similar. Fireflies in Kyoto can still be been seen along some of the rivers and streams in the quieter and greener parts of the city, but they quickly fade and disappear after a few short weeks.

Firefly Namagashi

Kameya Yoshinaga
This shinise was established in 1803, the late Edo period, is now the 7th generation, being in business for over 200 years. In addition to producing excellent Japanese confections, Kameya Yoshinaga also offers confectionary making classes, unfortunately in Japanese only.

The store is famous for its well, the Samegai Well (醒ケ井).

Wells in Kyoto and Kyoto Water
This well is among the ‘top 3 wells in Kyoto’ (Japanese love a top 3 list). The others are Agatai Well (縣井), in the Goshi Imperial Palace and Somei (染井), in Nashinoki Shrine on the west side of imperial palace grounds.

Samegai well is located one street east from Shijo-Horikawa intersection, on very narrow Samegai-street, where Kameya Yoshinaga store is. Modern construction in Kyoto, especially the subway, disrupted the water flow to many shallow wells in the city and cause them to go dry. In 1991, the owner of Kameya Yoshinaga decided to revive the Samegai Well and deepened it to 80 meters.

The flow of water through the aquifer below Kyoto is quite brisk, so a steady stream of fresh and clean water percolated and purified down through the North Mountains produces water perfectly suited to Japanese cuisine. Kameya Yoshinaga uses Samegai Well water in all of its confections.

At the entrance to the store, there is a tiny garden with rocks and greenery and a black stone ‘well’ in the shape of the traditional Japanese well. The wet black stone, with clean fresh water continually flowing over it has a cooling effect on the Japanese psyche. How about for you?

Kameya Yoshinaga Entrance Garden and Samegai Well Revival

Kameya Yoshinaga Samegai Well Revival

Kameya Yoshinaga Samegai Well Sign

We were privileged to visit one of our favorite Kyoto restaurants, Honke Owariya that is among the oldest restaurants in the world, and learn how to make their incredibly delicious ‘dashi‘ broth for soba noodles. Having about 540 years of experience to draw upon is a fantastically delicious thing!

When I first sat down with the 15th generation owner and president of Honke Owariya, Denzaemon Inaoka to take about this article, I told him that we wanted to learn about Owariya’s wonderful soba, i.e. the noodles. He said that more than noodles, we needed to learn about dashi. And, the water of Kyoto.

Sound familiar? Kyoto water makes great dashi, sake and tea.

Honke Owariya, like a lot of other folks in Kyoto, is very, very particular about the water that they use. They won’t open a restaurant in Tokyo because the same dashi cannot be made with Tokyo water. When they opened their Shijo Teramachi branch which is in a department store, one of their terms was that they would drill their own well for water. In the new Shijo Kawaramachi branch (on the 7th floor of Takashimaya Department Store) a well could not be dug, so dashi is made every morning at the honten (main store) and laboriously transported over!

Making Dashi

Mr. Yoshida, the chori-cho (head chef), showed us how to make dashi the Honke Owariya way.

ingredients:

• water
• Rishiri Kombu (Rishiri Kombu is a high quality kelp from Hokkaido)
• 3 kinds of shaved fish flakes
• saba-bushi (dried mackerel flakes, さば節)
• urume-bushi (dried round herrings flakes, うるめ節)
• mejika-bushi (dried bullet tuna flakes, めぢか節)
• sugar
• shoyu

preparation:

1. Soak kombu in water overnight (if possible). Should be refrigerated.
2. Simmer kombu for 40-50 minutes at 70°C. (time varies depending on season and air temperature)
3. Remove kombu
4. Simmer shaved fish flakes for about 25 minutes. Do not boil and skim the foam (aku, 灰汁) that gathers on the surface.
5. Remove heat
6. Adequately strain the broth and return to pot.
7. Add sugar and shoyu

Simmer the Kombu – Start

Starting to heat the water.

Simmer the Kombu – Start

Simmer the Kombu – Checking Progress

After 40 minutes or so, Yoshida Chori-cho checks the softness of the kombu with his thumbnail. When it has softened to the right degree, it is done.

Simmer the Kombu – Remove the Kombu

When the kombu has softened and lent it’s wonderful taste to the dashi, it is removed.

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Add Fish Flakes

Adding the three kinds of shaved fish flakes.

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Aku-tori

Aku-tori (灰汁取り), literally take ‘foam/scum’. Immediately a heavy froth of aku appears and is removed.

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Aku-tori

Wooden paddles are uses to collect and scoop out the aku, which is pitched down the drain on the floor.

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Aku-tori

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Aku-tori

Simmer the Shaved Fish – Tasting

Yoshida Chori-cho samples the dashi.

Strain the Dashi

A bamboo strainer basket is placed atop and bucket and cotton cloth is laid over the basket.

Strain the Dashi – Pour

Pour the dashi out and through the strainer.

Strain the Dashi

Scoop all the ‘bushi‘ shaved fish flakes out.

Strain the Dashi – Shaved Fish Flakes Detail

Add the Sugar and Shoyu

Sugar has been added and dashi is poured back in, dissolving it.

Add the Sugar and Shoyu

After all the dashi has been return, the shoyu is poured in.

Add the Sugar and Shoyu

Yoshida Chori-cho checks the amount with a notched bamboo pole.

Add the Sugar and Shoyu – Tasting

A final tasting.

Add the Sugar and Shoyu – Final Aku-tori

The sugar produces a small amount of aku which is also removed.

‘Serve’

A large pot from the kitchen is washed out (I don’t think it was really dirty).

‘Serve’

And the finished dashi is poured out. This is then taken to the kitchen and broth is ladled out for Honke Owariya’s signature soba dishes.

Kyoto Water

Why is Kyoto water so great? We hope to examine this subject in detail in the future, just as soon as we can locate the appropriate expert to interview, but a simple explanation is as follows. Kyoto is in a basin, when it rains water is filtered down through the mountains. The aquifer flows under the city from north-east to south-west. Honke Owariya Honten (honten means main/original store/restaurant), and the Imperial Palace is located right in the center of this aquifer.

This aquifer holds a tremendous amount of water. The largest lake in Japan, Lake Biwa, just over the East Mountains, contains only slightly more water than the aquifer flowing under Kyoto.

The natural filtering and mineral content causes the water to be balanced, not too hard, not too soft. This is an essential factor in the culinary culture of Kyoto.