How to Grow and Use Chocolate Mint

I absolutely love thin chocolate mints. I mean, I love sweet things in general, but those cool mint patties coated in thin layers of dark chocolate are on a whole new level of deliciousness.

The first time I heard about chocolate mint (the plant) was in the grocery store.

I’m not going to lie, I was eavesdropping on a conversation between two ladies in the checkout line. Who could blame me?

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One started talking about her garden, so I tuned in. The other interrupted, saying she’d harvested her chocolate mint the other day and she gushed, none too quietly, “It smells soooo good!”

I found my own plant at a nursery not long after that, and I was thrilled to find it really did smell like the inside of a Nestle After Eight wrapper! Ever since then, this variety has been a staple in my kitchen herb garden.

People are divided on whether it actually smells like chocolate. Some say it’s all in the mind, and some say it really does have an essence of the rich sweet we so adore.

There’s only one way to form an opinion on whether it’s got that hint of chocolate or not… learn how to grow it below, and then find plant of your own!

As its Latin name Mentha × piperita f. citrata ‘Chocolate’ suggests, this plant is a cultivar of peppermint, which was selected from a cross between watermint, M. aquatica, and M. spicata, or spearmint.

The result was a sterile hybrid we all know and love: M. piperita!

The form citrata, also known as orange mint, was selected for further development. ‘Chocolate’ was one of the resulting cultivars.

Its cool