Mint is a generic word for members of the mentha plant family. This family includes peppermint, orange mint, apple mint, spear mint, and roughly 15 more types.
Mint is one of the most ancient herbs known to mankind. Mint is also one of the most extensively grown herbs in India. It is a summer need in many houses.
Mint's therapeutic and restorative characteristics make it one of the most popular herbs in the kitchen.
Each mint kind has its own particular flavor. The presence of menthol is one of the primary distinguishing characteristics of the many types of mint.
Peppermint is a type of mint plant that is used in a variety of preparations and products for its flavor and scent. You may have come across peppermint tablets, ice cream, and tea.
Peppermint is also popular in the world of beauty and cosmetics. Peppermint oil is an effective treatment for a sore throat and a cold. Peppermint contains antimicrobial, antiseptic, and anti-inflammatory effects, as well as being a moderate sedative and natural pain reliever.
What Is The Difference Between Mint And Peppermint?
Mint is a generic word for plants in the Mentha family, whereas peppermint is a cross between watermint and spearmint. Peppermint has the strongest flavor and the most menthol taste of all the mint types. Peppermint is a subspecies or plant that belongs to the wider mint group of plants. It is a subsection of the greater mint plant collection.
Depending on how picky you are, there could be as few as 13 mint species or as many as 24. What makes this particularly difficult is that peppermint is actually a cross between multiple mint types, thus it isn't even a pure mint sub variety.
It's like a rambunctious branch of the larger type, mentha piperita.
However, when it comes to the plants that gave origin to the commercial version of peppermint, it may be traced back to the mint varieties spearmint and watermint. The menthol concentration of peppermint is substantially higher than that of spearmint. Watermint, on the other hand, contains no menthol at all.
Mint, on the other hand, is simply a broader classification of any plants that share the same strong flavor, overall leaf shape, and blooming characteristics as the up to 24 different species that comprise the mint genus.
The main distinction between peppermint and mint is their scent and taste strength. Choose peppermint if you want a really strong minty flavor.
Because of its strong fragrant characteristics and distinct flavor, peppermint has been employed for therapeutic purposes. It is also applied locally. It is either boiled down into oil or its extract is compressed and combined with other plant oils to create a fragrant topical mixture.
Generally mint plants are more mellow than peppermint and is more commonly used in food and cooking. Their distinct flavor can be found in dishes such as Vietnamese spring rolls and Indian chai. It also complements some varieties of soup. Mint leaves are frequently dried, crushed, and mixed into spice blends.
Peppermint is frequently utilized in fragrances as well as specific types of dishes that call for a strong mint flavor.
Peppermint has a higher percentage of menthol, at 40%, than its parent spearmint, which has less than 1%. You can't go wrong with peppermint if a meal or dessert calls for a stronger minty flavor. If you want a more faint trace of mint with a sweeter flavor profile, spearmint will do the work without overpowering your food.
The key distinction between mint and peppermint is that peppermint has the greatest flavor when compared to other mint family members. Because of this, it is rarely used as a fresh herb in cooking.
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