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Drink

Coffee-Tea

A beverage made by roasting coffee leaves, steeping them in boiling water, and adding sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Coffee-Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leaves

  1. Roast coffee leaves over a clear, smokeless bamboo fire until they turn brownish‑buff.

  2. Separate the leaves from the twigs and rub off the bark after a second roasting.

Brew and serve

  1. Immerse the roasted leaves in boiling water to make a clear brown infusion.

  2. Add sugar and cream to taste before serving.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee leaves
Roasting develops the brownish-buff colour and aroma that give the infusion its flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the slightly bitter, roasted flavour of the infusion.
Cream
Adds fat that softens the infusion's bitterness and gives a richer, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Roasting the coffee leaves. Roasting must bring the leaves to a brownish-buff colour without scorching them. Heat drives the browning reactions that create the aroma and flavour of the infusion, while over-roasting produces burnt, acrid notes.

“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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