Spearmint: The Carvone Mint, Where It Comes From, and How Cooks Use It

Spearmint is the sweet, gentle mint, the one behind British mint sauce and most of the world’s spearmint chewing gum. It’s one of the two mints you usually get when a recipe just says “mint,” and it’s a parent of the other one: peppermint is a natural cross between water mint and spearmint. Peppermint is built on menthol. Spearmint’s character comes from carvone, the main component of its oil, which is why it tastes sweeter and softer.¹

At a glance

What spearmint is

Spearmint is a perennial with square stems, sharply serrated leaves in opposite pairs, and loose, tapering spikes of lilac, pink or white flowers. It spreads aggressively by creeping stolons. Give it room.

Kew gives its native range as Europe to China, and Britannica says it’s native to Europe and Asia and has naturalized in North America and parts of Africa.²³ Peppermint is one of its offspring: NCCIH describes peppermint as a natural cross between water mint and spearmint.⁶ For the whole genus, see mint.

Flavor and aroma

Spearmint is sweet, green and clearly minty, without peppermint’s cold, penetrating bite. Katzer calls its flavor hard to describe, “minty but not pungent.”⁷

The compounds

Britannica gives carvone as the main component of spearmint oil,³ and Singh and Pandey’s review contrasts carvone-rich spearmint with peppermint, whose oil is dominated by menthol and menthone.¹ Katzer lists the main aroma compounds as carvone, limonene, dihydrocarvone, menthone, pulegone, 1,8-cineol and β-pinene.⁷

The proportions vary from sample to sample. One Serbian spearmint oil tabulated in the review had 69.5% carvone and 21.9% menthone.¹ That’s one sample, not a typical value; the mint page puts other samples side by side.

Origin and history

• Roman cooking. Pliny the Elder noted that mint was a common ingredient in Roman sauces.⁸ His text doesn’t tell us which mint he meant.
• Which mint the old texts mean. You’ll often read that spearmint is the mint in ancient texts. No source we found shows that. Britannica presumes the mint of the Bible to be Mentha longifolia, a different species.⁹

Plenty of other stories get passed around: that no truly wild spearmint survives, that the Romans brought it to Britain, that Greeks and Romans rubbed their tables with it before guests arrived, that the herbalist John Gerard praised it, that it kept mice away, and that American colonists drank mint tea because it dodged British taxes. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open, so we’ve left them out.

How spearmint is used

The uses run wide. The leaves, fresh or dried, flavor sweets, drinks, salads, soups, cheeses, meats, fish, sauces, fruits and vegetables, and the oil flavors toothpaste, candies and jellies. Some specific uses:

• Britain. Katzer names spearmint as the mint for the British mint sauce served with lamb.
• Chewing gum. Katzer says most spearmint today goes to the chewing gum industry.⁷
• Vietnam. A mild mint with a spearmint or caraway scent is often preferred over the sharper menthol type, and it’s served with noodle soup.
• The mint julep. Britannica describes the julep as an iced cocktail of bourbon, mint and sugar, famously tied to the Kentucky Derby. It doesn’t say which mint. Spearmint is the usual pick.

Spearmint is also the go-to mint for yogurt sauces, tabbouleh-style salads, stuffed vine leaves, mint tea and fruit.

Technique

LSU AgCenter groups mint with the delicate herbs best added near the end of cooking, since long heat costs you flavor and aroma. Its general rule for swapping fresh and dried herbs is 1 tablespoon finely cut fresh to 1 teaspoon crumbled dried. That’s a guide for herbs in general, not a spearmint measurement.¹⁰ For more, see cooking with mint and mint uses.

Buying and quality

We found no grading standard for fresh spearmint. Look for bright, unwilted leaves that smell strongly when rubbed, with no black or slimy patches. Check which mint you’re buying, since peppermint gives a colder, sharper result.

Storage

We found no published shelf life for fresh or dried spearmint from a regulator or extension service. For dried mint, let your nose decide: if a crushed pinch smells faint, it’s faded. See how to store mint, can you freeze mint and how to dry mint.

Nutrition

USDA’s FoodData Central lists, per 100 g of fresh spearmint:¹¹

Keep in mind that 100 g is far more mint than any dish uses.

Health and safety

There isn’t much research on spearmint.

• Hormones and PCOS. A small randomized trial, published as a 2008 conference abstract, gave women with polycystic ovary syndrome two cups of spearmint tea or a placebo tea for 30 days. Androgen levels fell significantly in the spearmint group, but the change in hirsutism score didn’t reach significance.¹² That’s one short trial, and the abstract doesn’t say how many women took part.
• Digestion. NIH’s NCCIH summary of the evidence on mint and digestion is about peppermint oil: enteric-coated peppermint oil capsules may improve IBS symptoms in adults.⁶ We found no comparable summary for spearmint.
• Regulatory status. FDA lists spearmint among spices and natural seasonings, and among essential oils, that are generally recognized as safe for their intended use.⁴⁵

We couldn’t trace claims that spearmint protects memory, kills salmonella or H. pylori, or treats IBS to human evidence, and we’re not claiming spearmint treats or prevents any condition.

Substitutes and comparisons

Peppermint can stand in for spearmint, but it’s sharper and colder, so use less. See mint substitutes for other options.

• Spearmint vs. peppermint
• Basil vs. mint
• Lemon balm vs. mint
• Oregano vs. mint

Other mints: peppermint, apple mint, watermint, Moroccan mint and types of mint. Overdid it? See too much mint.