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Thai-Style Iced Tea

By epicurious · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Black tea and condensed milk work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and 7 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By epicurious. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Black tea + condensed milktop 27% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

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

  3. Star anise + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Star anise + black teatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the star anise

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vanilla, black tea, cream, condensed milk):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Star anisethe original
  3. Gingerabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Peppermintabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, black tea, cream, condensed milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).