Sakura Cha 桜茶

Last week I ran into some websites mentioning Sakura Cha or Cherry Blossom Tea. One of which involved cherry blossoms infused in vinegar as a health drink. The others were more palatable.

Following the directions on a Youtube site that had rather garbled English describing how to make Sakura Cha I ran out to find ... that most of the cherry blossoms had fallen from the trees and had been swept away with the rain.

Luckily I found some remaining on trees on the East side of downtown Busan (Someyeon). As you can see in the picture the blossoms are plentiful there still.

My first steeping of the tea turned out to be less than satisfactory though: Even after a 10minute steeping the tea was still insipid, though it had a finely fuzzy aftertaste a bit though.

Over the course of this month I shall dry the tea leaves and lightly roast them in the frypan as is done with green tea.

Interestingly enough the Japanese have several words for cherry blossoms depending on when they are in cherry blossom season :

first [cherry] blossoms* (hatsu hana, mid spring).

cherry [blossoms*] (sakura, late spring).

[cherry] blossoms* (hana, late spring).

late cherry [blossoms*] (osozakura, late spring).

remaining [cherry] blossoms* (zanka, late spring).

My cherry blossoms are clearly zanka which would also possibly explain why the tea is so bland...Suffice to say I shall try drying and roasting and until then, the jury is still out on this kind of tea...I'll keep you posted...