A hint of mint

Today’s rave is all about Marks and Spencer’s After Dinner Mints (please refer to photo and proceed to drool).

Everyone knows After Eights, of course, so it’s refreshing to see another company’s take on chocolate mints. I’m starting to think they’re an English thing, because they’re both from the U.K.

The Marks and Spencer box reads: dark chocolate with a soft peppermint filling. Made with pure mint oil distilled from traditional English Black Mitcham mint, grown in Hampshire.

I’ve no idea what Black Mitcham mint is, but is sounds deliciously fragrant and old-world, as though it grew side by side with rampion in Rapunzel’s witch’s garden.

The map of England I’ve got in my head has London planted firmly in the southeast. The rest of it is a bit hazy, as though someone had gone and spilled water over an inked map. That’s my way of confessing that if you ask me where Hampshire is, I’d have to tell you very honestly: Haven’t a clue.

I know New Hampshire, but something tells me they’re not very related, except possibly ancestor-wise.

A bit of research might be in place at this point.

Ok, I’m back, and this is what I have to report:

Two very instructive and interesting web articles on Black Mitcham mint can be found at the following urls:

1)   www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/22/foodanddrink.features8

2)   www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=45829

Alternatively, you can simply Google Black Mitcham mint and see what comes up. Sir Michael Colman (of Colman’s Mustard fame) decided to grow mint. Apparently it’s a particularly fragrant, delicate sort of mint that had all but died out until Sir Colman decided to breathe new life into it.

It used to be grown in an area of south London called Mitcham, therefore the name, in the 18^th century. With the advent of the Second World War, more important crops were required to be grown (I suppose eating took priority over afternoon tea!), so Black Mitcham mint was left by the wayside.

Apparently (so say the articles), it also grows in Montana and Oregon.

It all sounds heavenly and minty, and I’m so glad Marks and Spencer uses it in their chocolates, because for a while no one was interested in Sir Colman’s new fangled idea about growing a better mint.

Now all I need is a soothing cup of tea made from the same mint, and possibly a trip to Hampshire (where’s that again?) to see these fields for myself.

Mint grows like a weed in my mother’s garden in Canada. I have no idea what variety it is, but I’ll try and see if I can’t get my hands on some Black Mitcham mint seeds.

I can smell it already.