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Drink

Bran Tea

A tea made by boiling wheat bran in water and sweetening with sugar, honey, or molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Wheat and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,071 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Bran Tea

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 3 quarts of water in a pot.

  2. Add 1 pound of fresh wheat bran and boil down to 1 quart.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add sugar, honey, or molasses 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. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh wheat bran
Forms the base of the tea, and boiling releases its flavor and body into the water.
Sugar, honey, or molasses
Adds sweetness and a richer flavor, added to taste after straining.

The step that matters

Boil down to 1 quart. Evaporation concentrates the liquid and draws flavor from the bran. Stopping at the right volume sets the tea's strength, so reducing too little leaves it weak and reducing too far makes it harsh and bitter.

“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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