Why Does Mint Taste Cold?

Mints are aromatic, almost exclusively perennial, rarely annual, herbs. They have wide-spreading underground and overground stolons and erect, square, branched stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, from oblong to lanceolate, often downy, and with a serrated margin. Leaf colors range from dark green and gray-green to purple, blue, and sometimes pale yellow. The flowers are white to purple and produced in false whorls called verticillasters. The corolla is two-lipped with four subequal lobes, the upper lobe usually the largest. The fruit is a nutlet, containing one to four seeds.

So, why does mint taste cold?

Similar to why peppers taste hot, what's going on here is a chemical in mint called menthol, tricks the brain into thinking that the area the menthol is applied to, is cold;  even though, in fact, it's the same as it was before.  Specifically, menthol binds with cold sensitive receptors in your skin; these receptors contain things called "ion channels", in this case TRPM8.  The menthol makes these much more sensitive normal and thus tricks your brain into thinking you are feeling a cold sensation, when in fact, everything is more or less the same temperature as before.

Moroccan Tea  (a blend of black and mint tea) is available through our shop online

Source:  Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentha