The cigarette was launched on February 1, 2005, with limited sales beginning in the
Kagoshima and
Miyazaki prefectures. The new Sakura cigarette was designed with lower
tar values and the introduction of D-spec. However, the pack design and basic elements remained unchanged. The old cherry blossom variant was discontinued after January 2006. After that, a "D-spec" (low smoke smell) version of Sakura was sold in the
Kanagawa Prefecture only on October 2, 2006 (5 other JTI brands were simultaneously sold in this limited area). New cherry blossoms were discontinued as of January, 2011 due to poor sales. They were of traditional Japanese cigarette sizes: short (70 mm), king size (85 mm) or long (100 mm). They came within a soft or hard pack, 10 or 20 cigarettes per pack. ==Products==