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Drink

Linseed Tea

Linseed tea is a beverage made by steeping linseed, liquorice, and lemon in boiling water, then sweetened and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Linseed Tea

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Linseed Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine linseed, liquorice, and lemon in a jug.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture.

Infuse and sweeten

  1. Place the jug by the fire for 2-3 hours.

  2. Sweeten with castor sugar or sugar candy, then stir the mixture.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain through muslin.

  2. Warm before 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Linseed
Releases mucilage into the hot water, giving the tea a soothing, slightly thick body.
Liquorice root
Adds a natural sweetness and its distinctive earthy flavour to the infusion.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness, sweetening the tea to taste.

The step that matters

Long infusion by the fire. Linseed releases its mucilage slowly in hot water, so the full 2-3 hours of steeping gives the tea its body. Cutting the infusion short leaves it thin and weakly flavoured.

“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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