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Drink

Cold Tea or Coffee

A chilled beverage made by steeping coffee or tea in water, then straining and optionally adding milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and tea work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 259 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓

Cold Tea or Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. Grind the coffee berries finely.

  2. Combine 1 tablespoon of ground coffee with 1 cup of water.

  3. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

  4. Strain through cheesecloth or flannel.

Make the tea

  1. For tea, combine 2 teaspoons of tea with ½ cup of water.

  2. Let it sit for 30 minutes, then strain.

Serve

  1. Add desired amounts of water, milk, or cream.

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. Coffee + teatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee berries
Provide the coffee flavor, which is extracted slowly into cold water over time.
Tea
Provides the tea flavor, which is extracted slowly into cold water over time.

The step that matters

Let it sit for at least 30 minutes. Cold water extracts flavor much more slowly than hot water, so a short steep yields a weak, thin brew. Allowing the full steeping time lets enough flavor compounds dissolve before straining.

“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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