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Drink

Iced Tea

A beverage made by cooling brewed tea, adding ice, lemon slices, and sweetener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and lemon work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 610 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Iced Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Brew and chill

  1. Brew the tea as directed and let it cool.

  2. Place the cooled tea in the refrigerator.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill a glass pitcher with ice.

  2. Add the sliced lemon to the pitcher.

  3. Sweeten the tea to taste and pour it over the ice.

  4. Stir until very cold and serve.

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. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 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. Tea + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,204 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

Tea
Provides the main flavor and the tannins that give iced tea its body.
Sliced lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the tea's bitterness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the tea's bitter edge.

The step that matters

Let the tea cool before refrigerating. Putting hot tea straight into the refrigerator or over ice can cause it to turn cloudy and can warm the fridge. Cooling it first keeps the tea clear and safe to chill.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, 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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