You can also consume the tea unsweetened or ice cold. You can easily make peppermint or spearmint tea at home by infusing the mint leaves in hot water and then sweetening the tea with honey. Spearmint and peppermint are also used to infuse in edibles such as chewing gum, candy, ice cream, and chocolate. You can also use the two types of mint together. In some recipes, the two types of mint can be used interchangeably. As such, you will require a smaller amount of peppermint for your recipes than you would spearmint. However, the minty flavor is more intense in recipes when you use peppermint rather than spearmint. Spearmint Culinary Applicationsīoth peppermint and spearmint are used for culinary purposes. Whether peppermint or spearmint, fresh mint has a more intense smell and flavor than dried mint. Spearmint is also sweeter as it contains a compound known as carvone while peppermint has a pungent, peppery flavor. Peppermint has a 40% methanol concentration, while spearmint has 0.5%. This is because peppermint contains higher concentrations of methanol, the chemical that gives mint its minty taste. Peppermint has an intense minty taste, while spearmint has a mild taste. One of the easiest methods of telling peppermint apart from spearmint is by tasting the leaves. Spearmint flowers are pink or white, while peppermint flowers are mostly a darker shade of pink than spearmint flowers. Spearmint flowers grow in a cone-shaped arrangement in small bunches at the top of the stem. Flowersīoth spearmint and peppermint produce flowers. The subsequent leaves grow in the opposite direction from the previous set.Īs a result, the leaves form a cross shape at the stem. Typically, the leaves in each pair are opposite to each other. Spearmint leaves may also be hairy.įor both types of mint plants, leaves grow in pairs. On the other hand, spearmint leaf veins are green. Younger peppermint leaves may also have a purple hue on the edges. The veins are more pronounced on the back of the leaves. Peppermint leaves have distinctive purple or dark red veins on the leaves. Although both spearmint and peppermint leaves are serrated, spearmint leaves have sharper serrations.įurthermore, spearmint leaves are thicker than peppermint leaves. LeavesĪs the name suggests, spearmint leaves are spear-shaped. The key distinguishing feature in their stems is that peppermint stems have a purple hue while spearmint stems are green. There are some hairs on the stems but the hairs are more pronounced on spearmint stems. Stemsīoth spearmint and peppermint have square stems. They can both grow up to 3 feet tall in the right conditions. Both have serrated leaf edges and a similar ovate shape. While peppermint and spearmint plants are quite similar, there are slight differences in their physical appearance. Spearmint, Mentha Spicata, is more popular as a garden mint. It mostly grows naturally near water bodies like rivers and ponds, but you can also grow it in your garden. Pepper mint, Mentha Piperita, is a hybrid mint variety of spearmint and water mint.
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