Madinah Mint from Saudi Arabia
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Kate Kasten
Posted on: February 21, 2008

My Saudi Arabian student served what she called Madinah mint tea to me, and it was delectable! I have ever since tried to find the seeds or plants or loose tea itself. On line I read an April, 2000, Q&A query from someone about the same tea experience and you said it was a tea with long, thin leaves, called Mentha longifolia (L.)L. with vernacular names Na’ana, gha’gha, or habak. You said you sell it as "silver mint." I don’t see it in your catalogue. Any idea where/how I can get it? It is absolutely heavenly--more delicate and subtle than our spearmints and peppermints.

It is always a risky business trying to say which of our mints matches up with what is grown or used in other countries. Mints are notoriously promiscuous cross-pollinators in the wild and in cultivation, and the result is thousands of different of mints around the world with different flavours, scents, and morphologies. In our post in 2000 we were guessing that the madinah mint might be a type of Mentha longifolia based on Ghazanfar’s book, "Arabian Medicinal Plants". But it is really quite a stretch to say that our silver mint is identical to it. In fact, our silver mint is almost certainly not the same, though it may be similar, and may be an acceptible substitute.

Silver mint has not been listed in our catalogue for several years. However, we are working on having some plants available later this spring. Please keep checking our plant page

http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?show=list&prodclass=Herb_and_Vegetable_Plants

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