Tea type
Herbal Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Broth, Cherry, Floral, Fruity, Herbaceous, Plum, Sakura, Salty, Savory, Smooth, Sweet, Tart, Viscous, Airy, Brine, Cherry Blossom, Light, Salt, Flowers, Honey, Tangy, Umami, Vinegar
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Caffeine Free
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Cameron B.
Average preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 45 sec 5 g 7 oz / 194 ml

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15 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Tea peeps? This tea is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL! This is a new tea for me, and from what I was told from the tea seller, yunomi.us, this is a very traditional japanese flavor. Ehh! A Challenge! An...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “This tea has very interesting steeping directions. However, they help to offset the salt (which preserves the blossoms)… The sight of the tea is very nice—clear liquid with a pink flower floating...” Read full tasting note
    65
  • “This is basically a pickled flower. It is lovely once the petals unfurl. It makes me feel like a princess. Everyone knows that flowers are a princess’ favorite food. The tea itself it a little...” Read full tasting note
    66
  • “Wow, talk about different but so cool. You have to go into this with an open mind and I think I did or at least I hope I did. It was lovely and so very unique. I tried it plain for my first time...” Read full tasting note
    79

From Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms

Light and smooth, this Sakura Tea is mildly salty with a floral aftertaste and plum undertones. A transparent pink expands in the cup revealing a flowery aroma with hints of the sea. This tea is made by preserving cherry blossoms in salt and plum vinegar. Its salty taste is common in Japan and the tea is most often used for celebrations and special occasions.

Taste: Salty
Body: Light
Texture: Rounded
Length: Medium
Harvest: April
Tea Cultivar: N/A
Origin: Wazuka
Cultivation: N/A
Processing: Preserved with salt and plum vinegar

About Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms View company

It started with a single cup of tea. As the legend goes, our president Akihiro Kita, or Akky-san, visited Wazuka, Kyoto one fateful day. At the time, Akky-san was still a college student in search for life's calling. After trying the region's famous Ujicha (literally meaning tea from the Uji district), he immediately fell in love and his passion for green tea was born. He had finally found what he was looking for in that one simple cup of tea. After fifteen years of learning to master the art of growing tea from tea farmers in Wazuka, Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms was born and as they say, the rest is history. So what's an Obubu? Obubu is the Kyoto slang for tea. Here in the international department we call ourselves Obubu Tea. That's "Tea Tea" for the bilinguals. We love tea so much, we just had to have it twice in our name. Now Obubu means more than just tea to us. It means, family, friends, passion and the place we call home. More than just tea. Though the roots of Obubu stem from tea, it has become more than that over the years. Obubu is an agricultural social venture, operating with three (1) bring quality Japanese tea to the world (2) contribute to the local and global community through tea (3) revitalize interest in tea and agriculture through education.

15 Tasting Notes

200 tasting notes

Now this is ONE cool tea. I recommend steeping this in a glass vessel so you can see the magic unfold. You just take one single cherry blossom, pour hot water, and wait 5 minutes. In that time you can see a beautiful cherry blossom expand. Now, after this, I’m reading mixed directions. Some say to transfer the cherry blossom to another cup and pour hot water in that, making a new cup of tea – because the original cup will be VERY salty. You are supposed to add the salt to taste. That is recommended if you’re not a salty hot beverage person, or if you just want to taste the cherry blossom in your tea and nothing else. The cherry blossom tea on it’s own is actually very pleasant, fruity, and slight hint of sweet. You could of course use more cherry blossoms for a more powerful flavor, but I like the subtlety.

As for the original salty broth, it’s actually very pleasant on it’s own. Fair warning the salt does overpower the mixture if you drink it straight. You can also add “the salt mixture to taste” to the original cherry blossom brew and the taste is MUCH tamer. It’s really all about what you’re in the mood for.

Highly recommend this tea – if only for just the novelty (or should I say “novel tea”) of it.

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26
2 tasting notes

It’s recommended to soak the flowers in warm water for five minutes before use to remove excess salt. Of course you can save the salt water to add into the tea once it’s brewed.

Directions are rather simple: Two Flowers and 195F/90C water.

Visual
Dry Leaf: Shriveled petals and leaves. Vibrant pink petals, brown steams and leaves. Grains of salt apparent.
Wet Leaf: The petals opened up to reveal pale pink coloring. The stem and leaves are showing a hint of green.

Smell
Dry Leaf: Fruity vinegar (plum and cherry), floral. Slight mineral(?)
Wet Leaf: Same as the dry leaf

Tasting: Salt with hint of plum vinegar. Floral and light cherries.

Flavors: Cherry, Cherry Blossom, Floral, Flowers, Salt, Vinegar

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 0 sec 2 OZ / 50 ML

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90
306 tasting notes

This is my 150th review! BOOM! FIREWORKS!

I like to review something special and out of ordinary for my reviews that are multiples of 50, so here’s one I’ve had for a bit that I haven’t gotten around to reviewing.

In Japan, this sakura blossom tisane is called Sakurayu. It’s made by picking fresh cherry blossoms in the spring and preserving them in salt and plum vinegar. The preparation method is a little tricky because of the salt. The method I’ve tried that worked best is to soak the flowers in hot water for about 5 minutes to remove the salt. This should be hot water like you’d draw from the tap. Maybe 140F degrees or less. You aren’t looking to steep the flowers, but to remove the salt. After this, you should put the blossoms directly into your teacup and pour on boiling water. Let them steep another 3 to 5 minutes.

The resulting drink is very light in color, but slightly yellow. The floating blossoms are gorgeous when they open into little fine poofs of pink. The scent and taste are surprisingly more like cherries than I’d imagine. I thought it’d be a bit more floral. I think some of this is actually plum flavor coming from the plum vinegar. There’s a hint of saltiness to this tea that is subtle, but if you save the initial brine from the flower that was soaked in hot water, you can scoop back in a little of this salty and flavorful brine a bit at a time if you want your drink to be a little more salty and flavorful. I personally enjoy it without putting any of this brine back in. It’s very delicate and spring-like.

I have also tried using these flowers to flavor sake. I soaked them in hot water for a few minutes to remove the salt, then put the flowers into my sake carafe and poured some sake in. The carafe was moved to a tall pot of water and then almost brought to a simmer to heat the sake inside. After this, I poured it back into the sake bottle, used a special pump that sucks the air back out, and put it into the fridge for a few hours to chill. I served it chilled and the sake was very sweet with a subtle cherry/floral taste and a really thick creamy texture. There was a tiny hint of saltiness, but it was not as detectable among the sweet flavor of the sake. These petals look just as beautiful in clear (filtered) sake as they do in water, and the flavor is even more delicious, if you like sake.

I really recommend these to any lovers of flowers, cherry trees, cherries, or Japan. This is a soothing spring beverage you can enjoy any time of the year.

UPDATE: I revisited this for the New Year and I found that adding just a bit of sugar really brought out the nice fruity and floral qualities of this and neutralized the saltiness. I only used about 1/4 teaspoon of sugar in a 5 oz cup with two flowers. It was really nice. I think I’ll be using sugar with Sakurayu from here on.

Flavors: Cherry, Flowers, Plum, Salt

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Veronica

Congrats on 150!

Lion

Thank you!

CherryJam

I adore the taste of umeshu (a Japanese plum wine/liquer), so would probably love this tea. Don’t know about the salty brine but if it can be removed. The sake idea sounds interesting as well.

Lion

It isn’t very salty at all if you soak the flowers a bit and then brew them in separate water. I read on a Reddit post from a former employee of Obubu that the founder is working on a method to preserve them without salt. That would be really awesome if it works out!

CherryJam

Would love to get my hands on some of this tea. Wonder if they ship to New Zealand.

Lion

I imagine they do. They ship from Japan.

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863 tasting notes

Ever since that yummy encounter with the Obukucha tea I’ve been wanting to see if pickled cherry blossom would be as good as the pickled plum in that green tea.

Unfortunately that’s a no.

I think it’s because the salted, vinegared blossom also has a sweetness to it, and that’s like putting sugar on salt and vinegar chips. Or at least that’s what my tastebuds equated it with, and that is just gross.

Even once its steeped, as gorgeous as the pink flower looks floating in the tea, it just doesn’t ever have a flavor I can stand. Sweetened vinegar is just not my thing. Oh well, I’m really glad I got to try it and see for sure!

Stephanie

did you try rinsing it first? I have some sakura tea from another seller, and they specifically told me to rinse the salt off before brewing it. Thanks for reminding me actually, I need to try mine soon! :D

JoonSusanna

Yeah, I rinsed it per the directions. I think my problem was the sweet/salty combo. I like one or the other and not both together (the Obukucha was very savory, which is what I loved about it). I hope you end up liking the latte – can’t wait to read your tasting note about it!

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