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Drink

Tea Punch

A chilled beverage made with Ceylon tea, sugar, lemon and orange juice, served over ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tea Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tea base

  1. Put the Ceylon tea in a pitcher.

  2. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the tea.

  3. Cover and let it stand for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the tea and add 1 pound of sugar, juice of 6 lemons, and juice of 2 oranges.

  5. Set aside until very cold.

Serve

  1. Add chipped ice when serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ceylon tea
Provides the main tannic, aromatic flavour that gives the punch its character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the citrus juices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and cuts the sweetness.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and body alongside the lemon acidity.

The step that matters

Steeping the tea for 10 minutes. Over-steeping draws out excess tannins, which make the punch taste bitter and astringent. Timing the steep keeps the tea flavourful without harshness, so the sugar and citrus can balance it.

“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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