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Drink

Tea Punch

A chilled beverage made with boiling water, sugar, tea, lemon, pineapple, orange, cold water, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 base

  1. Boil 1 quart of water.

  2. Dissolve 2 cups of sugar in the boiling water.

  3. Brew 4 teaspoons of tea in the hot water.

Add the fruit and serve

  1. Add the juice and peel of 3 lemons, the juice of 1 can of pineapple, and the juice and peel of 2 oranges.

  2. Stir in 1 quart of cold water.

  3. Add ice and serve.

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. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the hot water to add sweetness that balances the citrus acidity.
Tea
Brewed in hot water to give the punch its tea flavour and aroma.
Lemons
Juice and peel add sharp acidity and bright citrus aroma.
Pineapple
Juice adds fruity sweetness and body to the punch.
Oranges
Juice and peel add sweetness and mellow citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Brewing the tea. Tea left too long in hot water draws out bitter tannins, making the punch harsh. Brewing the measured tea in the hot water and then diluting it with cold water keeps the flavour balanced.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, tea, lemon, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, tea, lemon, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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