Name: Tea Punch
Ingredients: Oolong tea; large cake of ice; lemon juice; orange juice; small seasonal fruit

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

Brew the Oolong tea to your desired strength.
Pour the hot tea into a punch bowl over a large cake of ice.

Add the juices and fruit

Add lemon juice to the bowl.
Add orange juice to the bowl.
Stir in small seasonal fruit as desired.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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: Provides the main flavour and aroma, and its strength is set by how long it is brewed.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances sweetness.
Orange juice: Adds fruity sweetness and body to the punch.
Small seasonal fruit: Adds fresh fruit flavour and visual appeal.

“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.