With months of nothing but sun, Japanese summers can sap your will to live. Be grateful, then, for the arrival of °ì²¹°ì¾±²µ¨­°ù¾± (shaved ice). In fact, it¡¯s about the only thing to look forward to between now and November.

Nakamuraken is a cafe beside Kyoto¡¯s Katsura River that sells wagashi (Japanese sweets), and its lineup of kakig¨­ri flavors is as voluminous as the ices themselves: yuzu, sudachi (a dark green citrus), mango, strawberry and, in keeping with Kyoto mores, matcha-flavored creations also feature heavily. The ice is piled into a glass, and one between two should do.

The layout in this 130-year-old machiya (townhouse) is decidedly muddled: There is a shop and a waiting room out front, and the rest of the cafe is a mixture of wide Japanese-style rooms linked to narrow Western-style rooms. At the center there is even a garden.

Each season brings new additions and subtractions to the wagashi menu: yomogi-dango (a gelatinous sweet made from mugwort) and hanami-dango (a rice flour sweet served during cherry-blossom season) have given way to ³¾¾±³ú³Ü²â¨­³ó²¹²Ô (a rich green jelly made from adzuki beans). Japanese sweets are an acquired taste, but a good place to start is warabi-mochi (gelatinous sweet made from fern starch, served with soybean flour), which, much like kakig¨­ri, sounds as wonderful as it tastes.

61 Katsura Asaha-cho, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto; 075-381-2650; ; open Weds.-Mon. 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; nearest station Katsura; no smoking; no English spoken; no English menu.