Sakura season is the shortest of the year. The trees flower for two weeks, sometimes less, and then the petals fall. In Japan there is a word for the practice of gathering to see them, hanami, and a quiet understanding that the brevity is the point.
Our name comes from this. Sakura-do: the house of cherry blossoms. A nod to the neighbourhood in Tokyo where our founder Mei lived, where the sakura trees lined the river by her home. Hanami sits at the heart of everything we do: the idea that the moment matters because it passes, that what we make should be earned, that craft is patient.
For sakura season this year we put together a small collection to quietly celebrate the bloom. The Sakura Snow Cake, with its delicate snow-like shell, cheesecake centre and soft cream within, finished with dried rose petals. A Cherry Blossom Shortcake, our Japanese chiffon sponge dressed in cream with cherry branches and blossoms across its surface. And our Sakura Biscuits, vanilla butter biscuits shaped like cherry blossoms, glazed in deep pink with a pearl finish.
Sakura season has passed now. But the principle is one we carry through the year: that the things worth doing are worth doing slowly, that the things worth eating are worth waiting for. Beauty is fleeting. Craft is patient. Sweetness should be earned.
