Hydrodistillation (HD) and steamdistillation (SD) are known to be the most prevalent methods of essential oils extraction. Despite many studies on extraction methods, there is no report on comparison of SD and HD and their extracted essential oils. In this study, SD was used for extraction of essential oils from Mentha piperita L. (peppermint), which is one of the medicinal plants of high consumption, and the results were compared with those of the HD. The results showed that although extraction with HD started sooner, both methods had the extraction time of about 1 hour. Scanning electron micrographs of mint leaves showed significant changes of glands after extraction in both methods. The required energy for extraction and kinetic parameters as well as quality of extracted essential oils where compared by physical constants and GC-MS analysis. The results of this study revealed that both HD and SD can be used as qualitative reference methods of extraction due to similarity of properties of extracted essential oils.

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