February 14 — Valentine's Day in Tokyo

February 14 — Valentine's Day in Tokyo: roses beside the chocolate

February 14 — Valentine's Day in Tokyo is, as everywhere in Japan, a day when women give chocolate: honmei-choco to the one they love, giri-choco to colleagues and the boss. Men reply a month later, on White Day. Flowers sit beside the chocolate here, not instead of it, so the choice starts with who the bouquet is for and which of the two dates it marks.

Honmei-choco from her, and where flowers fit on the fourteenth

Giri-choco is an office obligation, something handed round the desk out of duty rather than feeling. Honmei-choco is the personal gift, given to one person and meant. A rose sent for Valentine's Day belongs with the second kind: it is addressed to someone in particular, not to a whole department.

The fourteenth is not a public holiday in Japan. The nearest ones are National Foundation Day on 11 February and the Emperor's Birthday on 23 February, so a bouquet ordered for the fourteenth usually reaches its recipient on an ordinary working day, at a desk rather than at home. Getting it there, whether to an office floor, a hotel room, or from an order placed abroad, is covered in Flowers in Tokyo.

None of this means Japanese men are expected to send roses back on the day itself. The exchange runs the other way: chocolate now, an answer on White Day, 14 March.

Petals turned back by hand, in red or in white

The French treatment is done by the florist: the outer petals are turned back by hand, opened one by one until the bloom sits wider and looser than it grew. Japan imports most of its roses from Kenya and Ethiopia.

Red carries the obvious meaning: passionate love, in Victorian flower dictionaries, though the books never agreed on a single list. Eleven stems in one colour keep that meaning plain: 11 Red French Roses.

White is just as safe a choice here as red, despite one local caution worth knowing. The flower Japan sets aside for funerals is the white chrysanthemum, never given to someone living; a white rose carries none of that association, and 11 White French Roses reads as a clean, formal gift rather than a sombre one. One number habit is worth a mention too: gifts here tend to avoid the counts four and nine, a point covered with the rest of the local counting rules in counting stems for a Japanese gift. Either colour is easiest to compare properly among the full roses selection.

A box stands on its own without a vase, which suits a desk at work or a hotel room where no vase is likely to be waiting. The foam inside it is watered evenly across its surface each day.

The card that goes with any order is free to add, and it can carry a signature or stay anonymous. Sweets, a balloon or a vase are added from the basket at checkout, alongside the bouquet itself.

Where the sender is a woman, the chocolate she hands over is already her Valentine's gift under the Japanese custom; a rose or a box of strawberries then works as something extra beside it, not a replacement for it. Chocolate itself, along with other small additions, is chosen from gifts to go with the bouquet. Strawberries pair easily with red roses in one box, and the containers themselves are listed under flowers in boxes. A Cake "Love" can go on the same order.

A potted plant or a named bouquet, beyond the single rose

Loose roses are not the only option for 14 February here. The Tokyo selection also lists named bouquets, arrangements that pair roses with hydrangea and lisianthus, and a potted plant for someone who would rather keep a living gift growing well past the day itself.

Valentine's flower delivery in Tokyo peaks on the fourteenth itself, with wider delivery windows than usual, so booking a few days ahead keeps more time slots open; full conditions sit on the delivery page.

White Day follows a month later, on 14 March. Whoever received chocolate on the fourteenth is the one expected to reply, and sweets remain the usual answer, though flowers are among the gifts people send back too. The same box of 11 Red French Roses or 11 White French Roses works just as well for that reply, and the date for it is chosen at checkout.

Start with the red and white French roses; a box suits a desk or a hotel room, and strawberries go with either colour.