- "Cherries Are the New Caviar (And I Blame TikTok)"

My Childhood Cherry Tree Didn’t Have a Brand Deal

As a kid, I had a cherry tree in the yard. Not the manicured, ornamental kind, but a tangled tangle of limbs that dropped sun-warmed jewels straight into our hands. I remember the birds always beat us to the best ones. I remember the stains on my fingers, knees, and probably the patio furniture, too. We didn’t call it “organic” or “locally sourced.” It was just… ours.

Flash forward to summer 2025, and cherries are suddenly everywhere. They’re in cocktails with three-syllable bitters, scattered over clafoutis I still can’t pronounce, and dancing through TikToks in syrupy slo-mo. Cherries are having their moment as the main character.

And I’m not mad about it. There’s something poetic about this fruit—sweet with a bite, pretty but unpretentious. It makes sense that we’re clinging to them in a world that feels, increasingly, like it’s been de-pitted and over-processed.

But it does make me wonder: when did fruit become aesthetic? When did grocery stores start charging $8.99 for a handful of nostalgia?

I think about that old tree a lot lately, how abundance used to feel normal. Picking cherries was an act of joy, not a form of content creation. And how the simplest things—a branch, a breeze, a burst of tartness on the tongue—carried their kind of rebellion.

So yes, I’ll keep sipping my overpriced cherry spritzer. But I’ll also keep remembering the tree. Not because it’s trendy now, but because it taught me how to love what’s seasonal, fleeting, and real. Put a cherry on it!