This past weekend, Harry Styles made a surprise appearance at a Luton Town–versus–Manchester United match, where he was seated next to Mick Harford — and directly above musician Ezra Koenig, no less — a former player and the current recruitment head for Luton Town. At some point before kickoff, Harford was thrown a half-opened pack of mints, which he offered to Styles. Even from a distance, I could make out the brand name and the red-and-green packaging: They were Trebor Extra Strong mints, the same ones Jessica Chastain told us she can’t live without just last month.
“I like the size of it,” Chastain told us. “It’s a mint that you have to commit to. Some people don’t like the chalkiness of it — I love it.” Instead of trying to order them online here in the States, which you can do at a premium, “I’m someone who really stocks up on it when I travel to the U.K.,” she said. “I’ve got, like, 40 rolls of it in my house — there’s a drawer filled with them. And I bring them everywhere. When I’m doing press or when I’m meeting people and signing autographs, I always make sure that I’m not thrown into a situation where I don’t have a mint (and a Sharpie).”
Not being a Brit myself, I had to find out more. What was so special about these mints, and could chalkiness really be a positive quality? I consulted Strategist senior editor Ailbhe Malone, who is based in the U.K. “They’re a grandpa mint — like the mint version of a Werther’s Original,” she told me, adding that they’re also “pungent” and “very much a smoker’s mint.”
“They are the mints you find a dusty, rolled-up packet of in your mum’s or grandmother’s purse,” said Strategist writer Rachael Griffiths, a Liverpudlian who lives in London. “They’re super-chalky, and they’re a task to finish. You have to work on them for a while, but the chalkiness-slash-determination makes your mouth feel exceptionally clean, and your breath is notably fresh.” Think of an Altoid but “a bit larger and flatter, like a big chalky penny.”
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