Sakura Tea

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.

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.

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.

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!