Name: Linseed Tea
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons linseed; 1 quart boiling water; 6 lumps of sugar; 1 lemon; 1 oz. Spanish juice

Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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

Cut the thin yellow rind from the lemon and place it in a jug.
Add the strained lemon juice, sugar, Spanish juice, and linseed to the jug.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture.
Let it stand for a while, then strain 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.

Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Linseed: Its mucilage thickens the boiling water, giving the tea a soothing, slightly viscous body.
Lemon: Its juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma to the tea.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the lemon and Spanish juice.

“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.