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Drink

Corn Tea

A beverage made by toasting corn, grinding it, and steeping the powder in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,532 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Corn Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Toast the corn in a dry pan until browned.

  2. Grind the toasted corn into a fine powder.

Brew and serve

  1. Pour the ground corn into boiling water.

  2. Let steep for a few minutes, then strain.

  3. Serve hot, with or without 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. Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Common corn
Toasting gives the corn browned, roasted flavour that defines the tea.
Boiling water
Hot water extracts the toasted corn's flavour and aroma into the liquid.

The step that matters

Toasting the corn until browned. Browning drives Maillard and caramelisation reactions that create the roasted, nutty flavour. Under-toasted corn gives a flat, raw taste, while over-toasted corn turns bitter and acrid.

“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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