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A Simple Tea Punch

A chilled punch made with tea, sugar, lemon and orange juices, and ginger ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

A Simple Tea Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Brew the tea

  1. Pour boiling water over the English breakfast tea.

  2. Let the tea stand for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the tea over the sugar.

Finish the punch

  1. When cool, add lemon juice, orange juice, and water.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the ginger ale.

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. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  4. Tea + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together216 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

English breakfast tea
Provides the tannins and robust tea flavor that give the punch its backbone.
Sugar
Sweetens the tea and balances the sourness of the citrus juices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the sweetness.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and body, softening the sharpness of the lemon.
Ginger ale
Adds carbonation for lightness and a gentle spicy-sweet aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the ginger ale just before serving. Ginger ale is carbonated, and its bubbles escape steadily once opened. Stirring it in early, or letting the punch sit, leaves a flat drink with less lift and aroma.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Peppermintfits less well
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

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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