Name: Russian Tea
Ingredients: tea; lemon slices (seeds removed); lemon juice; sugar; preserved strawberries or candied cherries (for garnish)

Why it works: Tea and lemon work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 610 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Russian Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Brew your tea according to your preferred method.
Serve the tea hot or cold, without milk.
Add a thin slice of lemon or a few drops of lemon juice to each cup.
Sweeten with sugar to taste.
Garnish each cup with a preserved strawberry or a candied cherry.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tea + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,204 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tea: Provides the base flavor and the tannins that give the drink its body.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the tea and balances its sweetness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that softens the tea's natural bitterness.