Spearmint
As a child, I would ask my mother to brew spearmint tea on cold winter days. She would keep the leaves submerged until the tea itself was just on the verge of bitterness, and then I would spoon in so much sugar that it was a wonder my teeth didn’t retract in fear. If there was snow, I would retrieve some, from the top of the balcony rail where it was clear and clean, and then I would gently float it atop my cup, in much the same way that one might spoon whipped cream onto hot chocolate.
Spearmint tea is a bit less harsh than Peppermint, and while the latter smells like the red and white barber pole stripes that swirl around candy canes, the former has a distinctly green taste that is at once softer and more pungent in a way that evokes the spongy carpet of a forest floor, the coolest breeze on the hottest summer day, the tang of salt water that flows in tears and oceans, and the sweetness of a mother’s kiss on her sleeping daughter’s sun-warmed brow.
