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Drink

Iceland Moss Tea

A beverage made by boiling Iceland moss in water, then served with cream or milk and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Iceland Moss Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the moss in cold water overnight.

Make and serve

  1. Boil the soaked moss in the same water for 30 minutes after it starts boiling.

  2. Strain the mixture through a linen cloth.

  3. Serve the tea with cream and sugar or milk and sugar, according to taste.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Moss
Its soluble gums release into the water, giving the tea a light, slightly thick body.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and softness, rounding out the earthy flavour of the moss.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the mild bitterness of the moss.

The step that matters

Start the 30 minutes once the water boils. The gums in the moss are drawn out by sustained simmering. Counting the 30 minutes from the first boil, not from when the pot goes on the heat, gives the moss a full simmer so it releases enough of its body into the 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.

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