Why Peppermint Tea Tastes Better When You Breathe Out After the Sip

Before the first sip there’s the steam, a cool green breath rising off the cup while the window turns blue at half past four. This Sunday, let’s taste the tea twice: once on the way in, and once on the way out.

The Sense That Has No Name

Aroma reaches you through two doors. When you sniff, it comes in through the front of your nose. When you swallow, it travels up the back of your throat on the out-breath to the very same smell receptors. In 1982 the psychologist Paul Rozin called smell the only “dual” sense for exactly this reason. Along the way he noticed something lovely: of the major languages he looked at, not one had an everyday word for the smell part of flavor. We simply call all of it “taste.”

You may have heard that 80% of taste is really smell. In 2015 Charles Spence, who runs Oxford’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory, went looking for the source of that number. He found claims ranging anywhere from 75 to 95%, and he concluded that no single figure really holds up. What does hold up is the nose-pinch test, and peppermint tea makes it beautifully clear. Pinch your nose and sip. You’ll still feel the cool, because menthol’s chill comes from nerve endings in your mouth rather than from smell. But the mint disappears, and you’re left with cool, faintly bitter water. Let go, and the green floods back in.

This Sunday’s Ritual: The Two-Door Cup

Brew a cup of peppermint tea with a bag or loose leaves, and put a saucer over the mug while it steeps for five minutes so the plant’s own aroma stays in the cup instead of drifting off with the steam. Please don’t add essential oil to your tea. The leaves already carry exactly as much as a cup should hold.

Keep the room scent-quiet for this one, so nothing competes. Wrap both hands around the mug and take three slow breaths over the steam. That’s the front door. Then sip, swallow, close your lips and breathe out slowly through your nose. That’s the back door, and most people find the mint turns rounder and sweeter there, closer to the leaf itself. Drink the whole cup this way, with no phone and no list.

When the cup is empty, carry the feeling into the evening. Put 1 drop of peppermint and 2 drops of Atlas cedarwood on a cotton ball in a small dish beside your chair. The cedarwood softens peppermint’s brightness into something that suits the dark hours. If you love how peppermint fills a room, our peppermint guide covers how it behaves in the air and what it pairs with.

May the last cup of the week taste like twice as much.
— Chad