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Drink

Ice Tea Punch

A chilled beverage made with tea, fruit, and ice, served with Appolinaris water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ice Tea Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Steep the tea in 1 quart of water, then strain and cool.

  2. Stir in the granulated sugar and lemon juice until dissolved.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the sliced lemon, orange, strawberries, and crushed ice.

  2. When ready to serve, add Appolinaris water to the mixture.

  3. Garnish with fresh mint dusted with powdered sugar.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

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

  4. Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together549 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. 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

Tea
Provides the main flavor and tannins that give the punch its characteristic taste.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Strawberries
Contribute fruity flavor, color, and aroma to the punch.
Crushed ice
Chills the punch quickly and dilutes it slightly as it melts.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, sugar, lemon, orange. 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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