Plum blossom
The blossom of the Chinese plum, which flowers in late winter before its own leaves and often through snow. It is brewed lightly in China and Japan and carries more cultural weight than almost any other flower in East Asia, most of it accumulated through poetry and painting rather than through drinking.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Prunus mume
- Family
- Rosaceae
- Part used
- Flower
- Origin
- Southern China, Taiwan and Indo-China
- Drunk in
- Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Japan, Korea
Character
Faintly almond-like with a clean green sharpness, and quite bitter if pushed. It is a subtle drink and is easily overwhelmed by anything served alongside it.
Notes: almond, green apple, honey
History
Cultivated in China for well over two thousand years and established as one of the Four Gentlemen of painting by the Song period, when flowering-in-winter became its whole symbolic content. Japanese ume cultivation follows Chinese introduction and produced a separate tradition around the fruit rather than the flower.
How it is drunk
Brewed alone or with green tea in China, and appearing in Japanese and Korean spring drinks. Plum-blossom viewing precedes cherry-blossom viewing by weeks and is the quieter of the two customs.
Production
Buds are picked just before opening in late winter and dried at low temperature. The window is short, the weather at that time of year is against the harvest, and the material is correspondingly expensive.
Preparation
Infusion · Blended with tea
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 80–85 °C · 3 min
Category-typical practice rather than a measurement for this specific botanical. Most infusions are far more tolerant of a long steep than tea is.
What gets confused
Prunus mume is a distinct species from both the European plum and the Japanese cherry, despite the English names it collects. The blossom and the salted fruit are separate products of the same tree.
Common mistakes
- Hot water and a long steep, which flattens a delicate aroma and leaves the bitterness.
Comparisons
- Cherry blossom vs plum blossom — Two East Asian blossoms with enormous cultural weight and almost none of it accumulated through drinking. One is preserved in salt, the other dried, and they are prepared in completely different ways.
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Prunus mume Siebold & Zucc. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Plum blossom is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.