About Mint Juice

Mint juice is made by liquidizing mint leaves in a blender or a juicer. The green juice is then consumed raw as a cooling health drink. The exact origin of mint juice is not known. However, mint has long been recognized for its cooling properties on the body. The leaves have a fresh, pleasing odor and taste that makes them ideal for use in teas and beverages.

Mint Juice Recipe: Ingredients Used and Preparation Overview

There are many different methods that are used to prepare mint juice. For example, the juice can be prepared by blending spearmint or peppermint leaves in a blender and then sieving the resulting juice. This juice has to be drunk fresh immediately. Another version can be prepared by steeping the crushed leaves in sugar syrup for 20 minutes or half an hour. This will extract the mint essential oil into the syrup. The resulting syrup is diluted with water and then, drunk as a chilled drink.

Serving Mint Juice

The juice can be served hot or cold, ocassionally garnished with a sprig of fresh mint.

Mint Juice Recipe: Popular Variations

Alcoholic mint juice is prepared by mixing mint extract or fresh mint juice with liqueurs.
Mint lemonade is a favorite summer cooling drink in Syria.
In Beirut, mint lemonade is made with mint leaves that have been soaked in sugar syrup to extract the flavors.
In Israel, a variety called as lemon nana is made. Nana is the common name for mint in Israel.
Ginger mint lemonade is prepared during summer months in the American South.
Mint is considered to be an aid to digestion. It is combined with fruits that will aid digestion. Mint juice smoothies are common where the mint leaf is crushed with fruits like watermelon, banana, raspberries, etc and served chilled over ice.
In India, mint juice is flavored with raw mango powder and cumin and served as a digestive aid.

Mint Juice Benefits

Raw mint juice contains essential oils that can be beneficial to the body. The plant and its leaves have long been used to treat indigestion, headaches, colic, irritable bowel syndrome etc. The raw juice contains a larger amount of the volatile mint oil and it has very powerful antiseptic, antiviral and bactericidal properties. Naturopaths also recommend using fresh mint juice on oily skin and hair to achieve a healthy glow.

Juicing Mint: Trivia

The stem of the mint plant is not used for making mint juice as it turns the juice dark black.