Peppermint Leaf Cut, 2 oz (Mentha piperita)

True peppermint. Mentha piperita, cut for ready blending.

A bright, cutting scent. The freshener of any blend it enters.

A working 2 ounces. Plenty for a season of sachets and burns.

• Botanical: Mentha piperita (peppermint), cut leaf
• Weight: 2 oz; store airtight, cool, and dark
• Sold as a ritual botanical, not as food, tea, or medicine
• SKU: HPEPC

Cunningham's encyclopedia files peppermint under Mercury and Fire, with powers of purification, sleep, love, healing, and psychic awakening, a generous file for a humble kitchen-garden mint. In practice it is above all a purifier: strewn or burned to cleanse a space, tucked into sleep pillows for untroubled rest, added to healing sachets, and rubbed against household surfaces in old custom to drive out ill feeling. Its scent does half the persuading; nothing announces "freshly cleansed" to the senses quite like mint. The herb does no working alone; it lends its brightness while your intention directs the rite, as ritual botanicals honestly do.

1. Blend it into purification and cleansing sachets, alone or with salt and rosemary.
2. Burn a pinch on charcoal, alone or in a loose blend, for a sharp clearing smoke.
3. Tuck it into a sleep pillow, the old custom for restful nights.
4. Keep it airtight and out of the kitchen jars; this is the working shelf's mint, not the teapot's.

• Parsley, Egyptian Flat Leaf, 2 oz: a fellow Mercury herb for the same shelf.
• Pentagram Herb Grinder, 3 Inches: breaks leaf down for even blends.
• Pentagram Cauldron Smudge Pot, 3 1/4 Inches: where the cleansing pinch burns.

Can I drink this as tea?

No. We sell this peppermint as a ritual botanical, not as food, tea, or medicine, and it is not packaged or handled to food standards. Tea-grade peppermint belongs to the grocer; this jar belongs to the working shelf.

What are its correspondences?

Cunningham gives peppermint to Mercury and Fire, with powers of purification, sleep, love, healing, and psychic awareness.

How should I store it?

Airtight, cool, and dark; mint's brightness is volatile and rewards a good lid.