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During the sakura season, a new craze takes over Japan, sakura flavoured snacks and drinks. In my recent trip to Japan, I had the opportunity to try some of these and I will be sharing my thoughts about them.

Sakura Matcha Kit Kat

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I was quite excited to try this flavour of Kit Kat as I really enjoyed the matcha flavoured ones and I assumed the sakura flavour would make it even better. However, I’m guessing my palate is really bad, but I could hardly discern the difference between this Sakura Matcha Kit Kat and the usual Matcha Kit Kat. The matcha flavour is as delectable as ever but it was too overpowering and made it harder to taste the sakura flavour.

 Sakura Soft Serve Ice-cream

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On the way to the Meiji Shrine, there was a small food court that was selling sakura soft serve ice-cream and I decided to try it out. Based on the colour alone, I thought it would taste similar to strawberry ice cream. It turns out that sakura (or the Japanese Cherry) tastes just like cherries. I guess calling it by its Japanese name gives it an exotic feel but it really isn’t as special as you would assume it to be.

Sakura Beer

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Upon a friend’s recommendation, I visited a maid cafe and sakura beer was featured on the menu. Simply adding the word “sakura” in front of something edible made me curious enough to try it and the experience was a lot different from the previous two. The beer tasted just like ordinary beer at first but the aftertaste was a lot different. It left a bittersweet taste in my mouth which was really rather enjoyable. It will make for a great drink when you go to view the sakura.

Overall Verdict

Sakura is basically the same as cherry. But as mentioned earlier, the Japanese name gives it a more exotic feel which adds to the hype. In addition, there are all sorts of advertisement for this flavour which adds to its popularity that helps to overshadow the fact that it isn’t as special as the advertisements make them out to be. If you happen to dislike the cherry flavour back home, you probably will not enjoy this as much. This is just my personal view towards it, so it is best that you actually go try it out yourself to see if you do like it or not.