Every spring, Starbucks releases its "Sakura" series. This year, the 2015 "SAKURA" series will be available from February 15th, including the Japan-exclusive "Caramel Sakura Chocolate Latte" (420-540 yen), "Sakura Chiffon Cake" (380 yen), and merchandise featuring cherry blossom designs. The drinks will be on sale from March 17th, the Sakura Chiffon Cake until March 31st, and the drinkware until mid-April.

To coincide with this, the flower art unit Plantica has decorated the Starbucks Ueno Onshi Park store in Tokyo's Ueno Park (February 16th to early April) and the Sakurabashi Plaza Building store in Umeda, Osaka (February 26th to early April) with cherry blossoms. Enjoy an early cherry blossom viewing experience in the gorgeous stores decorated with cherry blossoms in full bloom.

"We wanted customers to be able to enjoy their drinks beneath flowers in full bloom when they enter the store. We have cherry blossom sheets in the window, and we've varied the density of the cherry blossoms to create the impression of the changing seasons. All of the cherry blossoms are real cherry blossoms that we have photographed and printed. We think customers will be able to enjoy the decorations from the outside as well. For the floral arrangements inside the store, we used real branches of Somei Yoshino and Hanazakura cherry trees, as well as five or six types of artificial flowers. The hidden yellow here and there is a colour choice that is reminiscent of the tumblers and other drinkware," says Plantica's Kimura Atsu.

Nishigaki Tomohiro of Starbucks Japan's public relations department said, "The 'SAKURA' series is now in its 14th year, and the drinks are in their fifth year. Starbucks has a philosophy of respecting the country, region, and culture of each country. Cherry blossoms are a symbolic flower of Japan, and they are a flower that everyone looks forward to seeing bloom, so the 'SAKURA' series was started out of respect for that culture. Last year, we asked Plantica to decorate the store below our headquarters in Meguro with cherry blossoms, but this year we decided to do it in Ueno, a famous cherry blossom viewing spot."