Spearmint

Mike Petro wrote"

I grow several mints, mainly for iced tea. (Haven't tried it with Puer yet, but soon...) Peppermint and spearmint both seem to work well; the fancy ones seem too fruity to me. I would never dry it - too much loss of delicate top notes. Fortunately, mint is plentiful from well before to well after the iced-tea season here.

When using, I generally take about two leaves per cup, bruise by rolling between clean palms, and throw into the mix.

An alternative to drying, which works well for all sorts of fresh herbs, is to freeze the moist leaves. Bags and jars work; needs to be airtight to avoid freezer burn given the high surface area. Cell damage from freezing releases even more taste.

I used to grow mint indoors for winter pleasure, but always got aphids. "Safer soap" insecticide works fine and washes off, but I couldn't be bothered.

-DM

Hey Mike, I actually wanted to find some too because it's supposed to be the authentic way to make Morrocan mint tea...anyway, I looked through my links and found this place-

I have not ordered from these folks before but it sure seems like they have a really good selection of herbs and spices and reasonable prices. Bwrring that, try a local heath food store who carries bulk herbs...although it seems like peppermint is way more common to find there than spearmint. I tried to grow peppermint in my front flowerbox this summer but none of it came up, which surprised me since I'd heard it grew like a weed...

Good luck

Melinda

Compare the smell with some fresh spearmint.

There is nothing more direct than my backyard, or your backyard. Mint is a weed, and easy to grow. The main problem with it is that it tends to breed with any other mint nearby... if you have spearmint and your neighbor has peppermint, the second year you'll find you both have something kind of in-between.

If you grow your own spearmint, the easiest thing to do is dry it yourself. You can hang a bunch from the ceiling in a cool and dry place like the garage. You can dry in a convection oven or a food dehydrator as well. You'll be much happier with doing it yourself than buying commercially dried mint.

I have never used fresh spearmint in hot tea, but I will often put a large sprig in when I make iced tea, and leave it there as it cools.

--scott