Why do mints make your mouth feel cold? And specifically, why does your mouth feel so cold if you eat a few mints and then drink a glass of cold water afterwards?
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3$\begingroup$ Hmm.. duplicate of chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/558/170, but different stack! $\endgroup$– DanielJun 22, 2016 at 2:34
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2$\begingroup$ Duplicate of biology.stackexchange.com/q/31648/3340 $\endgroup$– WYSIWYGJun 22, 2016 at 4:58
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4$\begingroup$ Personally, I think @Daniel's dupe marking is more accurate. I would have been hard pressed to find the post on biology as it refers specifically to oil on the outside of the skin. Granted, they have the same answer, but how was I to know? $\endgroup$– rotaredomJun 22, 2016 at 11:32
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$\begingroup$ Whatever accurate or not, for me at least, all such link-up helps me a vast lot assemble the pieces to the whole picture. $\endgroup$– Always ConfusedSep 13, 2016 at 19:10
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$\begingroup$ Does menthol get easily evaporated at room-temperature? then the latent heat loss due to evaporation, may be a cause , though partly $\endgroup$– Always ConfusedSep 13, 2016 at 19:14
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1 Answer
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The feeling of cold from mints is caused by menthol. Menthol affects the TRPM8 receptor on skin and also in the mouth. TRPM8 is also a general cold receptor: so if you are in contact with menthol the receptor reacts just like when you are exposed to cold (Bautista et al., 2007).
The receptor is strongly activated at temperatures below 26 degrees Celsius (Bautista et al., 2007). Drinking water is usually colder than that. So if you ate mints and drink cold water afterwards, the receptor response is even stronger.
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1$\begingroup$ So if I eat mints and drink water that's warmer than 26C, nothing much should happen? $\endgroup$ Jun 22, 2016 at 13:12
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3$\begingroup$ @AlexDeLarge "Today, I am going to eat a breath mint dipped in hot sauce... FOR SCIENCE!" $\endgroup$ Jun 22, 2016 at 14:50
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2$\begingroup$ @JDiugosz: It does not seem to cancel out - you actually keep both the hot/pungent sensation and have a cooling effect (I ate a tomato curry spiced with Bhut jolokia and had a Fisherman's Friend afterwards). In fact, e.g. Turkish cuisine uses both spicing with mint and pul biber, probably exploiting these sensory antagonistic effects.. $\endgroup$ Jun 22, 2016 at 23:21