Picnicking Under the Cherry Blossoms - Food and Friends in Spring

As the weather warms up, companies immediately phase out heavy winter items to make room for the most important seasonal event of the year. Not only for the trees outdoors, but also for Japanese snacks, is cherry blossom season; also known as sakura season. The entire food scene pivots to focus on this specific theme, turning convenience store shelves and supermarket aisles pink almost overnight. Today, we are going to look at how this seasonal change impacts the Japanese snack market and what you can expect to eat during this time!

To understand the spring snack scene, you have to understand what sakura actually tastes like. Many people expect a purely floral or sweet flavor, but traditional sakura treats rely heavily on a sweet and salty combination. The standard for this flavor profile is sakura mochi. This is a soft pink rice cake filled with sweet red bean paste and wrapped in a real, pickled cherry blossom leaf. The salt from the pickled leaf cuts through the sweetness of the bean paste. This exact balance of sweet and salty is the blueprint for almost all modern sakura snacks. While this is the more “traditional” sakura flavor, newer desserts boast a sort of tangy floral vanilla flavor under the sakura name.

During March, major snack brands release limited-edition versions of their standard products to match this flavor as well. Many shops begin selling chocolate bars, biscuits, and even savory potato chips featuring a sakura twist. The packaging is always bright pink and heavily features cherry blossom designs. Because the actual blooming season is very short, these products are only available for a few weeks. This creates a high demand and a rush to try them before they disappear until next year.

The way people eat also changes in March due to the tradition of hanami. Hanami translates to flower viewing, but in practice, it is a large outdoor picnic held under the blooming trees. Friends, families, and coworkers gather on blue tarps in local parks to eat and drink together. Because of this, snack companies focus on selling large, shareable party packs. Savory snacks like rice crackers, fried chicken, and seasonal bento boxes filled with spring vegetables are incredibly popular because they are easy to transport and share outdoors.

Japan takes its seasonal changes very seriously, and few are as iconic and quintessentially Japanese as the cherry blossom season. Why not celebrate it yourself wherever you are in the world with our massive selection of seasonal goods?