Surveyed Tin Mint

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Old English tin, tin. As a color modifier, tin implies a soft-malleable-metal quality, the visual register of Cornish-and-Indonesian-tin-mining hand-cast-and-rolled tin-mining-and-tin-vessel-and-tin-toy soft-malleable-metal surfaces under hand-cast-and-rolled-tin workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to gold and foil in usage.

The genus Mentha — peppermint, spearmint, apple mint, water mint — the cooling herb whose menthol gives it that quality at the molecular level. The color refers to fresh peppermint leaves before drying: a clean, slightly cool green with the matte finish of trichome-rich leaf surface. Lighter than basil, cooler than parsley, with the mojito-and-Pimm's association of a herb tied to summer drinks across two continents.