Mint Condition

On these long, hot summer days, what's better than a large glass of cold lemonade with a few mint leaves thrown in? Or a special glass filled with your favorite ice tea and mint... On one of those recent scorcher days, I escaped to the shade behind our house and oozed down into the hammock. The cool drink in my hand got me thinking about mint in general and mint plants in particular.

If you drive around the back roads of the Willamette Valley in June and July, you are going to see many crops: wheat, barley, hops, hazelnuts, and a real cash crop - no I am not talking about hemp/cannabis - I am talking peppermint! In fact, most of the peppermint grown in the U.S. comes from Oregon and Washington. The plants are grown mostly for oil production and the Willamette Valley oil is considered premium in the mint world. The oil goes into countless products such as gum, tooth paste, soap, candy, etc. According to the Oregon Mint Commission it takes about 5.5 acres of peppermint to yield one 400 gallon barrel of mint oil.

Irrigated peppermint field near Corvallis, 7-7-15

Peppermint leaf

Sometimes you can smell the fresh, potent aroma of the mint field before you see it. Commercial peppermint (Mentha piperita) is a hybrid, has bright green leaves, and grows about 18 inches tall. It's a perennial that can last up to 15 years, but is normally rotated out of a field after about 3 to 7 years. And get this: At one time, the local mint oil produced by farmers was kept in bank vaults because it was so valuable.

Mint plants have a colorful past, appearing in both ancient Roman and Greek literature. Peppermint seems to have been used since the 1500's for cooking and herbal medicine. Because many historical notations are not precise about which mint plants are referenced, it is hard to trace the history. Native Americans also grew mint prior to the arrival of Europeans. Those newcomers brought their own mint plants, which soon became naturalized.

Spearmint bloom in our yard

There are about a dozen species of mint in the Mentha genus, one of them being Spearmint (Mentha spicata). Spearmint is also grown commercially, but is more often found in your back yard. The mint species can hybridize with each other, so exact identification in the wild is tricky.

The main difference between the two best know mint plants is that peppermint contains menthol, giving it a stronger flavor more suitable for candy and breath mints. Spearmint does not have menthol, is milder, and is used in teas and culinary flavoring.

Wild mint along the
Metolius River

There is no mistaking the scent of concentrated mint. While visiting Boulder, CO in 2013, we toured the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. One of the stops is in the mint room, which is a closed vault the size of a large garage. In this room, large bags of raw mint leaves and concentrate are stored for use in some of their teas. Before allowing us to enter, the tour guide told us some people can become dizzy with the strong smell! Well it was a powerful scent. We did not get dizzy, but it cleared out my sinuses for sure!

Garden mint blossoms are tiny, purple-ish clusters that appear along the main stalk of the plant. In the wild, our native Field Mint (Mentha arvensis) grows nearly everywhere in the state and produces similar flowers in smaller clusters.

So, with all that in mind, get on over to your local natural foods store and stock up on some mint before the next heat wave!