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Tea Punch

A chilled punch made with tea, citrus juices, pineapple, sugar, and Apollinaris.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Tea Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour boiling water over the tea and let it steep until it cools.

  2. Combine the tea with the juices of the oranges, lemons, and shredded pineapple, along with the sugar.

  3. Strain the mixture and just before serving, add the Apollinaris.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Tea + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tea
Adds tannins and a light bitter aroma that balances the sweetness.
Oranges
Juice adds sharp acidity and citrus aroma.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity that brightens the punch and cuts the sweetness.
Pineapple
Shredded fruit and its juice add tropical flavor and some sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the citrus juices.
Apollinaris
Carbonated water that adds fizz and lightens the drink.

The step that matters

Adding the Apollinaris just before serving. Carbonated water loses its dissolved carbon dioxide over time, so the fizz fades if it sits. Adding it last keeps the punch lively and bubbly when served.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, orange, lemon, 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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