Scientific name: Mentha piperita.
Common name: peppermint, raw mint, English mint.
English name: peppermint.
Parts used: leaves.
Components: essential oil (menthol, etc.), acetic and isovalerianic aldehyde.
Properties: perfuming, flavoring, digestive, carminative, refreshing and toning properties; helps regulate gastrointestinal motility.
Curiosity: mint is the mythological name of a daughter of Cocito that Proserpina turned into this herb out of revenge of her love with Pluto. The essence was introduced in Piedmont around 1900 by the British, for this reason it is also known as English mint.
The name "Mint" was used for the first time by Gaius Pliny the Elder, Roman naturalist in his "Naturalis historia”, which embraces all aspects of the kingdom of nature and was an inexhaustible source of data for the ancients, also used as a school text in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance period.
Linnaeus (1707-1778), a Swedish biologist and writer, defined in his "Species Plantarum" the scientific name of plants of this genus, belonging to the Labiatae family.