Cherry blossom – or sakura - season in Tokyo is truly a magical experience. Thousands of trees burst into bloom, dousing the streets with stunning shades of pink. The flowers are a national obsession and people flock to parks to hold hanami parties and picnics to view and photograph them. Stores will stock their shelves with or flavored items, such as sakura bento lunch boxes and even serve pink sakura drinks. As if shaking off the winter, a bright and optimistic atmosphere fills the city.
Starbucks Japan likes to keep their customers on their toes with a constant stream of seasonal items and Japans celebrated cherry blossom season is perhaps one of the highlights of the year in that regard.
After taking a brief break to release their first ever almond milk Frappuccinos, Starbucks Japan is returning to the theme of sakura sweets by upgrading their previously released floral and fluffy Sakura Fuwari Berry Frappuccino with a new Sakura Blooming Berry Frappuccino that doubles down on strawberry flavoring.
The Frappuccino is mixed with sakura strawberry sauce, as well as a velvety sweet and sour raspberry panna
cotta. The drink also contains strawberries mixed in in powder form, and is topped with sakura and vanilla crumbs as well as more strawberries to recreate fallen sakura petals.
Dango dumplings is an iconic sweet for cherry blossom viewing in Japan. These dumplings are made with sweetened rice flour (or sometimes with of glutinous rice flour).
Our guide has a great ability to focus very well on the beautiful blossoms, he also has such a smooth calming voice.
The area we were viewing is the same park as we visited earlier for the plum blossom viewing, these trees are now not in bloom except for a few and a special one that had both pink and white blooms.
