Name: Lemon Tea
Ingredients: weak tea; lemonade; sugar to taste; pinch of citric acid (optional)

Why it works: Tea and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,204 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lemon Tea

Ingredients

weak tea
lemonade
sugar to taste
pinch of citric acid (optional)

Directions

Brew a weak tea and strain it from the leaves.
Add an equal amount of lemonade.
Sweeten with sugar to taste.
For extra acidity, stir in a pinch of citric acid if desired.
Serve hot or cold, and improve by icing if preferred.

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.

Tea + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,204 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Weak tea: Provides the base liquid and a mild tannic, tea-like flavour.
Lemonade: Supplies the main citrus flavour, sweetness and acidity to the drink.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemonade and tea.

“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.