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Vegetables from Japan

Hanazuke (salt-pickled edible flowers)花漬け

Edible flowers, above all double cherry blossoms, are packed with salt and white plum vinegar under a weight for three weeks to a month, squeezed, shade-dried and coated in more salt. This is a boundary entry. It is a salt and acid cure, and no source describes microbes doing the work.

Fully documentedVegetables21 days – 30 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceSmall-batch recipe from the Kanagawa Agricultural Technology Center for 100 g of flowers in a plastic bag. Growers pack the flowers in tubs in the same order.
Cherry flowers100 gKanagawa's small-batch recipe; growers use double cherries, but single flowers work too[kanagawa]
Salt, for pickling16 g[kanagawa]
White plum vinegar50 mlFrom ume salted at 18%, which keeps for years[kanagawa]
Salt, for finishing20% of the dried flower weight[kanagawa]

Total time across the recorded steps: 21 days – 30 days

Start
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What changes: Cherry flowers are picked just before they open fully

Step 1 of 6
Pick the flowers before they open fully
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Kanzan double cherries flower late; picking starts in mid-April, before the flowers open so they do not fall apart in the tub. Kanagawa picks clusters with one flower open, one most of the way and one in bud.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Edible flowers, above all double cherry blossoms, are packed with salt and white plum vinegar under a weight for three weeks to a month, squeezed, shade-dried and coated in more salt. This is a boundary entry. It is a salt and acid cure, and no source describes microbes doing the work. Made in 6 steps over 21 days – 30 days. The longest step, weight and cure, takes 21–30 days (MAFF 2026). Salt is 20 % (Kanagawa Agricultural Technology Center 2026).

Key numbers
Main step21–30 daysReported[maff-tf-sakura]Weight and cure
Salt20 %Reported[kanagawa]Coat in salt and store cool and dark

What makes this one different

Hanazuke cures flowers, not leaves or roots, mostly with salt. Cherry blossom is cured with white plum vinegar, and chrysanthemum petals may be buried in red miso.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Ume blossom salt-pickleWashed eight-tenths-open ume flowers under boiled, cooled brine and a light weight for 2 months, then repacked in dry salt.
  • Chrysanthemum miso-picklePetals brined for about 2 h, then layered between gauze in red miso under a light weight for about 2 months.
  • Rape-bud salt-pickleYoung buds layered with salt under a light weight, ready overnight.
  • Spring orchid salt-pickleShunran flowers lightly salted and weighted for about 2 days; for keeping, dried a day and packed in salt with plum vinegar.

Safety

Kanagawa advises pickling the flowers at once after picking, because flowers packed in a bag build up heat and go stale. Dust and small insects are washed off first. The finished flowers lose colour and scent when kept warm or in the light, so they go in a cool, dark place, and the fridge is best. The white plum vinegar comes from ume salted at 18%, which keeps for years in a glass jar.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Salted cherry blossom has been made around Odawara and Hadano since the late Edo period. The area now grows 80–90% of Japan's edible double cherries, and Senmura in Hadano is known as the village of double cherries.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [maff-tf-sakura] MAFF, にっぽん伝統食図鑑 (Traditional Foods in Japan), 桜の花漬け (Kanagawa), read 2026-10gov
  2. [kanagawa] Kanagawa Agricultural Technology Center, 農産物の上手な利用法, 一重桜の桜の花漬 (100g) (materials, pickling, finishing and advice pages), read 2026-10gov
  3. [jawiki] Japanese Wikipedia, 花漬け (ume, chrysanthemum, rape-bud and orchid methods), read 2026-10wiki
  4. [sawada2021] Sawada K., Koyano H., Yamamoto N., Yamada T. 2021, The effects of vegetable pickling conditions on the dynamics of microbiota and metabolites, PeerJ 9:e11123, doi:10.7717/peerj.11123 (abstract via Europe PMC)paper