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Drink

Linseed Tea

Linseed tea is a warm beverage made by boiling linseed in water, flavored with lemon rind and sugar.

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

Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Linseed Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the linseed thoroughly.

  2. Thinly slice the lemon rind and place it in a jug with the sugar.

Make the tea

  1. Boil the linseed in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the tea over the lemon rind and sugar.

  3. Let it cool 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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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

Whole linseed
Releases mucilage into the water, giving the tea its body and slightly thick texture.
Maple or brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth that balances the sharp lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aromatic oils from the rind that brighten the tea.

The step that matters

Boil the linseed in water for 30 minutes. Linseed needs sustained simmering to release its mucilage fully; too short a boil leaves the tea thin and the seeds under-extracted.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. 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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