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 ↓
Iced Tea for Luncheon
Ingredients
Directions
Brew the tea
Measure one spoonful of tea per person plus 1 or 2 extra.
Pour fresh boiled water over the tea in an earthen teapot.
Place the teapot back on the stove to steep for 10 to 15 minutes without boiling.
Drain the tea into a pitcher and let it cool.
Chill and serve
Refrigerate the cooled tea.
Serve in glasses with a slice of lemon and a dish of cracked ice on the table.
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.
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Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together610 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
- Tea
- Provides the main flavor, aroma and color as its compounds dissolve into the water.
- Fresh boiled water
- Extracts flavor and color from the tea leaves during steeping.
- Slices of lemon
- Adds acidity and a bright citrus aroma that balances the tea.
- Cracked ice
- Chills the drink quickly, and it dilutes the tea slightly as it melts.
The step that matters
Steeping without boiling. Keeping the water just off the boil while the tea steeps avoids drawing out excess bitterness and astringency from the leaves, which happens more when the tea is boiled.
“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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