Mint in Tea: Peppermint or Spearmint, and How to Brew It

Mint (bohe, 薄荷) brings a bright, cooling lift to a blend - clean menthol freshness with a sweet green edge. Even a small pinch changes the whole character of a cup: crisper, greener, cool on the finish.

Taste and aroma in tea

Mint sits beautifully with green tea and light floral blends, where its coolness sharpens the finish and makes the tea feel clean and lively. It is at its best in warm weather, iced or hot, when that fresh menthol note is exactly what you want.

In Chinese and Thai cups

In southern China mint belongs to summer drinking, usually beside chrysanthemum and a green tea in the same lidded bowl, topped up through the afternoon. Thailand grows a different plant for the same job: sarahae (สะระแหน่), a small round-leafed kitchen mint that goes onto larb and yam by the handful and sits in bunches on every market table in Phuket. Cafés here put it over ice with a green base - which is how we drink it most of the year.

How to brew

Mint does not need boiling water - 85–90 °C keeps it fresh and green. Steep briefly; a long infusion can turn the leaf faintly bitter, so it is better to keep it short and top up.

How it is harvested and prepared

Mint for tea is cut just before it flowers, while the bud clusters are still tight - the point where its aromatic oils peak. Growers cut in the morning, once the dew has dried: menthol runs highest then and drops by afternoon, when stronger sun slows the enzyme that builds it.

Which oil you get depends on the plant. Peppermint's lead note is menthol; spearmint's is carvone, and in spearmint it gathers even earlier, before flowering - so the two are handled as different herbs, not one thing. After cutting, the leaf is dried low and slow - or in the shade, to keep those volatile oils where they belong; growers' drying guides hold the heat under about 55 °C for exactly this reason. Menthol slips away in a loosely sealed jar, so we keep ours dark and airtight, and it should reach your pouch as cool and bright as the day it was cut.

On our shelf

Mint doesn't headline a blend on the shelf - it lives in the blend builder, a 40 ฿ add-on that goes in by the pinch: just a few grams to a 100 g pouch, up to three parts. A little turns a green-tea or floral blend crisp and cold, and in the Phuket heat that's mostly what we want it for - iced, over a green base.

Is the mint in tea peppermint or spearmint?

They're different plants with different lead aromas: peppermint tastes of menthol, cool and sharp; spearmint of carvone, softer and sweeter. A blend can use either, so the character shifts with whichever is in the pouch. If it matters to your cup, ask which one we've used.