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Drink

Linseed Tea

Linseed tea is a warm beverage made by boiling linseed with water, lemon peel, barley sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Linseed Tea

Why it works: Lemon and barley work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Linseed Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tea

  1. Boil linseed in water gently for two hours.

  2. Add finely shredded lemon peel and barley sugar.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Add lemon juice to taste.

  2. Serve warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Linseed
Its mucilage thickens the water as it simmers, giving the tea a soothing, slightly viscous body.
Barley sugar
Dissolves into the liquid to add sweetness that balances the tart citrus.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that lift the flavour of the tea.

The step that matters

Boil linseed gently. Gentle simmering lets the linseed release its mucilage slowly into the water. A hard, fast boil can scorch the seeds and make the tea taste harsh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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