Why are brands like Starbucks and Coca-Cola obsessed with recreating the cherry blossom flavour?

Every year, in March and April, one of the most anticipated events on the planet happens throughout Japan – the blooming of sakura, or cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms are not only native to Japan, they all have festivals and events associated with them to celebrate the glorious explosion of pink.

No country can match Japan for tradition in this regard, nor for making the event such a money spinner. Every year, the trees bloom across the Land of Rising Sun and the shelves of retail outlets turn pink in celebration of the beauty of the blossoms, accompanied by a phenomenal selection of food.

Coca-Cola and Asahi celebrate cherry blossom season with seasonal packaging, Häagen-Dazs releases cherry blossom-flavoured ice cream and Starbucks’ Sakura selection has turned into a merchandising line with thermoses, mugs and all sort of products in an explosion of pink.

But what flavour is sakura? You will be pleased to learn there is an authentic cherry blossom flavour. The beautiful little flower, along with its leaves, are traditionally pickled in salt and vinegar. It’s not uncommon to find these pickled flowers on pastries and desserts while the leaf is almost exclusively used as a wrap for mochi or glutinous rice dessert during spring.

The question is, whether the ingredient has any flavour after being pickled and the answer is – yes. First, we must make a distinction between the flower and the leaf. The leaf has a stronger flavour. Acclaimed sushi chef Akira Umehara from Sushidokoro MAN in Kyoto brought over pickled cherry blossom leaves to serve as dessert for his four-day guest chef stint at Shikigiku in Tsim Sha Tsui. The leaves are usually paired with glutinous rice and red bean paste and balanced by brine to bring out a floral cherry flavour, similar to the aroma of cherry-flavoured confectionery.

Time Out Tokyo’s Kaila Imada describes sakura as having a subtle flavour. “The pickled flowers are usually used to top desserts, or you can also place them in hot water for sakura cha or sakura yu, which is basically sakura tea,” she said. “You have to rinse the salt off first, as it’s too salty, but you get a slight but distinct cherry blossom flavour.”

The cherry leaf extract powder in one of the favourite seasonal snacks, Kit Kat Sakura Matcha, is only listed ninth, a long way behind ingredients found in greater quantities such as sugar, milk and matcha. It’s a similar story in other seasonal produce where sakura is sometimes the final one to appear on the list of ingredients.

Roy Lau, pastry chef at The Park Lane Hong Kong, a Pullman hotel, likes to showcase the items on the sakura menu at Playt with a variety of ingredients. “We have used the strawberry, the fruity flavour of which is the perfect match with the dedicated sakura scent in our sakura and strawberry cake. For the sakura and black sugar gelato, the sweetness and freshness is mainly from the Okinawa black sugar-based gelato.”

This goes to show that real cherry blossom flavour does exist, but when you bite into the fantastic pink product, the chances are it’s some fruit or other ingredients that make you think pink rather than the real deal.

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