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A uniquely Japanese tea flavor will be available this spring from Lipton — sakura!

It may still be too early for real cherry blossoms in Japan, but Unilever Japan Customer Marketing has recently announced a product from their Lipton brand that brings with it the definite scent of spring. That’s right, for a limited time and exclusively in Japan, they will be offering a new sakura tea in easy-to-use pyramid-shaped tea bags!sakura-2

According to the product description, the sakura tea has a flavor and scent similar to that of the traditional Japanese confection sakura mochi, a popular treat especially in spring, consisting of a pink mochi rice cake with sweet red bean paste in the center, wrapped on the outside with a pickled sakura leaf.

The sakura tea is actually an addition to the line of Lipton Sweet Teas that already includes tempting flavors such as crème brûlée, blueberry muffin and apple pie (darn it, why do they have to make tea flavors sound so delectable?), and they recommend that you drink the tea straight to enjoy the delicate sakura flavor fully.

A limited-edition package of 12 sakura tea bags is currently available exclusively from the Lipton online store on both the Rakuten Market website and Yahoo!Japan Shopping site for 324 yen (US$2.86), and starting from March 1, the sakura tea will be available at stores across Japan in combo packs, together with the standard Lipton Yellow Label tea.

▼ The 12-bag sakura tea packs will come with either a 25-bag pack of the Yellow Label tea …   sakura-3

▼ … or a 50-bag Yellow Label pack. sakura-4

The sakura tea should be a convenient and enjoyable way to get a taste of a popular Japanese flavor and also make for a unique and inexpensive souvenir item, so you may want to keep an eye out for the tea if you’re visiting Japan during the spring cherry blossom viewing season!

Source: PR Times press release
Reference: Lipton Japan website Sweet Tea page
Top image: Lipton Japan website Sweet Tea page 
Insert images: PR Times press release