When a sakura

petal lands in your matcha,

your heart skips a beat.

 

 

Day 424

When a sakura petal lands in your matcha, you suspect things may have just gone from 0 to 100.

You blink twice and look again, because maybe you’ve just seen so many petals this sakura season that you’re hallucinating them too.

You look down at it, and look around. Your sunny Saturday tea ceremony just got real.

Was this an omen? What does it mean?

The soft-spoken ladies who are serving tea to visitors scurry over in their kimonos and get on their tippy toes . They take a peek, one at a time, into your tea bowl.

Some clap their hands and offer you nods of approval. Others look like they might almost be envious.

When a sakura petal lands in your matcha, you admire how delicately it matches the color of the ceramic vessel containing this fragile moment. A drop of the faintest pink, thinner than a sheet of paper, keeping itself afloat amongst the foam. The tea foam a woman has recently created with strong muscles and a traditional bamboo whisk.

You consider the fanaticism you have witnessed this hanami season.* The laborious hours poured into perfecting each cherry tree as they grow. The tedious preservation of the blossoms used to flavor food. The pink rice snacks sold in stores and pink eggs served in restaurants, all temporary, all in celebration of sakuras.

You consider how unemotional the Japanese usually appear in public and contrast it with the expressions in front of you.

You see that this isn’t some Starbucks marketing gimmick. This isn’t the next fancy drink everyone has to have.

This is better. Irreproducible.

When a sakura petal lands in your matcha, your heart skips a beat and you take a moment of gratitude. Then you gulp down the green and pink contents of your bowl, and humbly smile back at the universe, who just marked you with a sign which you do not yet fully understand.
 

*Hanami (花見)— Japanese tradition of appreciating the ever-changing beauty of flowers, often as an outdoor social gathering underneath sakura (cherry blossom) trees during bloom season.