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Drink

Tea Punch

A chilled punch made with brewed Oolong tea, lemon and orange juice, served over ice with seasonal fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tea Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brew the Oolong tea to your desired strength.

  2. Pour the tea into a punch bowl over a large cake of ice.

Add and serve

  1. Add lemon juice and orange juice to the bowl.

  2. Stir in small seasonal fruit.

  3. Serve chilled.

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.

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.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Tea + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Oolong tea
Forms the base of the punch and gives it its main flavor and aroma.
Large cake of ice
Chills the punch and slowly dilutes it as it melts.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tea.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity that balance the tea.
Small seasonal fruit
Adds fresh fruit flavor and aroma to the punch.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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