Organic Peppermint Tea Grown at Altitude: Why 1,200 Metres Matters

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita) is grown everywhere from Oregon to Uttar Pradesh. The plant adapts; the leaf does not taste the same. Here is why altitude changes it.

Essential oil concentration

Peppermint’s flavour comes from menthol and menthone in the leaf’s oil glands. Plants grown under strong UV light and cool nights produce more oil per gram of leaf as a stress response. At 1,200 metres in Val Poschiavo, summer days are long and bright and nights drop sharply — the conditions that concentrate oil. The result in the cup is a cleaner, colder finish without the muddy note of lowland mint.

A shorter season, a slower harvest

Lowland peppermint is typically cut two or three times a season. At altitude the growing season is short, so the harvest is smaller and timed to when the leaf is at its best, before flowering. Reto Raselli’s herbs at Raselli Organic are dried gently after cutting so the oil stays in the leaf rather than in the air.

How to brew it

One pyramid bag or a heaped teaspoon of loose leaf per cup. Water just off the boil. Five to seven minutes, covered. The same leaves take a second, gentler infusion.

The facts

• Grower: Reto Raselli, Raselli Organic, Val Poschiavo, Switzerland
• Altitude: 1,200 m
• Certification: organic (certified at the farm in Switzerland and by the Organic Food Federation in the UK)
• Ingredients: 100% organic peppermint. Nothing added.
• Caffeine: none
• Formats: 15-bag tin £19.95 · 45-bag refill £36 · 60-bag bundle £44.95 · loose leaf

Organic Alpine Peppermint — 15 bags