Cherry blossom
Cherry blossoms preserved in salt and plum vinegar rather than dried, then rinsed and steeped in hot water so the flower reopens in the cup. The drink is sakurayu, and it is served at engagements and weddings in Japan where green tea would be avoided.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Prunus serrulata
- Family
- Rosaceae
- Part used
- Flower
- Origin
- China, Japan and Korea; salt-cured around Odawara and in Kansai
- Drunk in
- Kanagawa, Kansai, Nagano
Character
Salty first, then a faint almond-cherry note from the coumarin the preserving develops. The visual moment when the flower reopens is at least half of the point.
Notes: cherry, almond, brine
History
Salt-preserving the blossom is an Edo-period technique from the area around Odawara, where the double-flowered yaezakura cultivars that hold up to pickling are still grown for it. The custom of serving it at betrothals rests on avoiding the phrase for 'tea', which carries an unwanted association at a marriage.
How it is drunk
Served at engagements, weddings and formal congratulations across Japan. The blossoms also flavour rice, wagashi and spring confectionery, and the pickled leaf wraps sakuramochi.
Production
Semi-open double blossoms are picked, layered in salt for several days, then steeped in ume vinegar and dried lightly so they stay pliable. The result is a preserve rather than a dried herb, and it keeps for a year in salt.
Preparation
Infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 85–90 °C · 2 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
Not a dried herb and not interchangeable with one. Only certain double-flowered cultivars hold their shape through salting, and single-flowered garden cherries collapse.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the rinse. Unrinsed blossoms make a cup that is simply salt water.
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.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Prunus serrulata Lindl. — 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 Cherry 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.