What's the point on the hard-nosed respawn rule? Now the game, being early access, is "buggy" and players "lose" their mint or mallets in world never to be able to regain them? No, that's not the answer. The only thing mint can currently be used for is the mallet. Any RPG would allow you to farm materials, even if hard, at a set periodic rate with given risk/difficulty.
A better answer, seeing how various food items are "thrown over the fence", would be a long-running timer which causes them to spawn and make the acquisition of the mint more of a challenge... not just a "get the level 2 hammer and you basically are given a level 3 weapon"