They look similar, they are sold side by side, and they taste substantially different. If you have ever bought mint tea and found it either disappointingly mild or startlingly cold, this is why.
The one number that explains it
Menthol. Peppermint oil is roughly 40% menthol. Spearmint is under 1%.
Menthol is what triggers the cold sensation — it activates the same nerve receptors that respond to low temperature, which is why peppermint tastes cold even when the tea is hot. Spearmint has almost none of it, and instead leads with carvone, a compound that reads as sweet and slightly fruity.
In the cup
- Peppermint: sharp, cooling, clean. A definite bite. The finish is long and leaves your mouth feeling cold. Assertive enough to stand on its own.
- Spearmint: softer, sweeter, rounder. More herbaceous, less bracing. This is the mint in mojitos and in Middle Eastern mint tea, where it is meant to sit alongside other flavours rather than dominate.
Neither is better. They are different tools. If you want something clean and cooling after a heavy meal, peppermint. If you want something gentle you can drink a lot of, spearmint.
Which do you have?
If a packet just says “mint tea”, it is more often spearmint or a blend. If it says peppermint, it should be peppermint — and you will know within a sip, because the cooling is unmistakable.
Ours is peppermint, sold as whole dried leaf rather than milled, which matters more with mint than with most things: menthol is volatile, so ground mint loses its punch fastest.
Brewing peppermint so it stays sharp
- Cover it. The single most important thing. Menthol escapes with the steam — an uncovered cup smells wonderful and tastes flat.
- 2–3g per cup, water just off the boil, 5–8 minutes.
- It will not turn bitter if you forget it, unlike lemongrass. Longer just means stronger.
- Cold brew it in summer. Peppermint is one of the better cold brews — see cold brewing.