Lakpura Dehydrated Sepalika Flowers are the dried blossoms of the night-flowering jasmine, a small tree that Sri Lankans know as Sepalika. The flowers are carefully selected and gently dried so that they keep their natural colour, their aroma and the traditional character that makes Sepalika a cherished blossom in Sri Lankan homes.
The tree, Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, is not a true jasmine, though it shares the name. Its flowers open at night and fall by morning, leaving a carpet of blossoms beneath the branches. Each flower has white petals and a slender orange tube, and it is that orange tube that gives the dried flowers their colour.
Look closely at the pile and you will see what drying does to them: a loose mass of curled, rust-orange tubes, flecked with paler, crinkled petal and the odd darker fragment of stem. The orange corolla tubes have long been valued in their own right, once used as the source of a saffron-yellow dye for silk and cotton.
Drying turns a flower that lasts a single night into something you can keep in the cupboard. Sepalika has a place in classic Sri Lankan preparations, and this dried form makes it easy to have on hand for everyday use, wherever you are.
The flowers are sold loose and come in three sizes, 100g, 250g and 500g. Store them in an airtight container, away from light and damp, so that the colour and aroma last.
