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Drink

Substitute for Tea

A herbal tea made from dried rose petals, rosemary leaves, and balm leaves, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Substitute for Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Blend the herbs

  1. Mix the dried red rose petals, rosemary leaves, and balm leaves together.

  2. Use 1 dessert spoonful of the mixture for every ½ pint of boiling water.

Steep and serve

  1. Steep and serve with cream and sugar, just like regular tea.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Rose + rosemarytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together93 recipes

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

  3. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

  4. Rose + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,086 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Rosemary + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together285 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried red rose petals
Supply most of the floral aroma and the delicate flavour of the infusion.
Dried rosemary leaves
Add a sharp, resinous aroma that gives the blend its herbal character.
Dried balm leaves
Contribute a mild, fresh herbal flavour that rounds out the blend.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the tea.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the herbal and floral notes.

The step that matters

Steeping the herb mixture in boiling water. Hot water draws aromatic and flavour compounds out of dried herbs. Too short a steep gives a weak, thin tea, while a long steep can pull out bitter compounds from the leaves.

Swap the rosemary

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Rosemarythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, cream, 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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