These blossoms look beautiful which is the first reason I decided to try them. Yunomi sold these so I went ahead and bought them straight out before I noticed they are preserved in salt and plum vinegar. I’m not a fan of either vinegar or salt so I became unsure on how this would taste.
Well a few weeks down the line and it arrives and it looks even better than the pictures. It’s like floral cotton candy, simply stunning. It also came with instructions on how to prepare this tea.
Step One – Place one or two flowers into hot water to cleanse them from their preservatives. Wait a minute or two before removing.
Step Two – Place the newly cleansed flowers into a clean bowl and add fresh hot water and allow to steep for up to 5 minutes.
Step Three – Once steeped taste and add the salted preserved water to taste.
That sounds easy enough and removing the salt and vinegar is a must. So I prepare the tea carefully following the above instructions and I get to step 3, the taste test. I taste the preserved water to see how bad that is and I start to choke so I don’t think I will be adding any of that nasty water. Yuck. It’s so strong though that I am worried about my actual tea, I don’t think it can be fully salt free.
Well after much worrying I decided to jump in and try it…what do I taste? ….SALT! Nothing but salt! It’s not as strong as the water it was washed in but it just tastes like salt water. No flowers, no sweetness or unexpected anything. Such a disappointment. Thinking about it now some Chinese and Japanese food is very salty tasting to me so maybe I knew what to expect. But still I bought it and tried my very best to like it. I got a large bag too :( It’s undrinkable though for me.
Sorry Japan, I tried.
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You might have better luck with sweet Sakura cherry blossom tea. This is the kind I have had before http://teatropolitan.wordpress.com/tea-collection/tea-collection12/attachment/178/
and it was much more sweet, cherry, floral, candy-like. No salt or vinegar. Not sure where to purchase though. I got mine from a tea store that is no longer in business.
Thank you for this review. Was also a bit sceptical to the salt pickling.
@Lala Thank you for the link. I hadn’t seen sweet sakura tea before, only the salted variety. I will have to keep my eyes open for it in the future.
@Dag Wedin It really is a shame that I can’t taste anything other than salt. I had such high hopes for it.
Well I will either be swapping this out or selling it because I really can’t drink it. Got 85g left so if anyone would like to try it let me know.
I have a small sample of salt pickled cherry blossoms I’m going to try very soon, too. The instructions I got said that rinsing them and adding to green tea while it is brewing is supposed to be tasty. Also I found a latte recipe- http://yunomi.us/4277/sweet-sakura-latte-recipe/
Totally prepare the blossom as normal, but remove it and add it to a cup of sencha.
I thought it was weird to add more of the soaking liquid to taste – it’s sooo salty!
rinse it one more time and then you will get a taste of the sakura…or maybe mix it with some of your cooking to make it pretty :)
You might have better luck with sweet Sakura cherry blossom tea. This is the kind I have had before http://teatropolitan.wordpress.com/tea-collection/tea-collection12/attachment/178/
and it was much more sweet, cherry, floral, candy-like. No salt or vinegar. Not sure where to purchase though. I got mine from a tea store that is no longer in business.
Thank you for this review. Was also a bit sceptical to the salt pickling.
@Lala Thank you for the link. I hadn’t seen sweet sakura tea before, only the salted variety. I will have to keep my eyes open for it in the future.
@Dag Wedin It really is a shame that I can’t taste anything other than salt. I had such high hopes for it.
Well I will either be swapping this out or selling it because I really can’t drink it. Got 85g left so if anyone would like to try it let me know.
I have a small sample of salt pickled cherry blossoms I’m going to try very soon, too. The instructions I got said that rinsing them and adding to green tea while it is brewing is supposed to be tasty. Also I found a latte recipe- http://yunomi.us/4277/sweet-sakura-latte-recipe/
Totally prepare the blossom as normal, but remove it and add it to a cup of sencha.
I thought it was weird to add more of the soaking liquid to taste – it’s sooo salty!
rinse it one more time and then you will get a taste of the sakura…or maybe mix it with some of your cooking to make it pretty :)