It’s the season for candy and presents and stuffing yourself with good things to eat and that’s what we have today. This is a beautiful edible flower called the Peppermint Surprise or Pepperminticus Candii. It’s perfect as a garnish or added to your favorite salad or simply eaten one petal at a time.

The blooms usually grow in groups of three and ripen together around the first of the holiday season. One unique characteristic they have is they need the light of a single bright star to fully realize their deepest richest color. That’s when they become fully ripened and must be picked quickly as they immediately turn into a hard brittle candy that is prone to wind damage. They look and feel like the finest delicate porcelain until you eat one. Then its heaven on earth. There is a OMG flavor-burst that will have your eyes watering, and your tongue smacking the back of your teeth, it tastes so good. You’ll be begging for just one more. It’s a good thing they’re expensive and hard to find because you’d eat next months house payment in one sitting if you could.

These flowers are fairly difficult to locate and harvest as they only grow on the eastern slopes of The Big Rock Candy mountain in Northern Colorado. They are found and harvested by listening for the sound they make as the night breezes flow by them causing them to vibrate and hum in harmony. It may be that this is why their blossoms bloom in threes as they need the three different tones to make a chord. Their bell-like shape amplifies their song and makes them slightly easier to locate. Although you can hunt for the flowers by listening for their songs often the flower’s song is drowned out by the buzzing of the bees in the Cigarette Trees, which is a trash plant that has completely fallen out of favor and is to be avoided at all costs due to its adverse effects on humans and other living things. However there is some unknown symbiosis that must occur between the Pepperminticus Candii  and the Cigarette Trees, cigagretable awfulitica that is not fully understood yet. But if you find the Cigarette Trees you will almost always find Peppermint Surprise flowers growing amongst them. And for that reason we haven’t burned out the Cigarette Tree grove yet.

Due to it’s incredibly high sugar content they should be kept away from young children under 30 as they might make them hyper-active, and hard to stomach and that’s  the last thing you want at this time of year so simply tell the little tots that they’re deadly poisonous and they should leave them alone.

As mentioned previously we are lucky enough to have a small grove of the Cigarette Trees with their attending Peppermint Surprise flowers in our arboretum here at The Institute where they can be purchased for 118.00 per ounce. Shipping extra. Please be advised that due to their delicate nature they can be broken and damaged in transit which reduces them to a powder that appears to resemble fireplace ashes, however the unique taste remains in full flavor, so they can be used as a sprinkle for cupcake toppings or on your favorite white ice cream. However, order at your own risk, this is a non-refundable item. Happy Holidays!