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Drink

English Tea

A sweet tea made with tea, water, vanilla, cinnamon, eggs, sugar, lemon zest, and optional arrack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

English Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tea

  1. Make an infusion of tea in water.

  2. Add vanilla and cinnamon, then strain through a cloth.

  3. Pour the strained tea into an urn.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs and yolks with powdered sugar.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the tea and stir until it foams.

  3. If desired, add grated lemon zest and arrack to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve in cups.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tea + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

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

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Whisked eggs and yolks foam and thicken the drink, giving it a rich, creamy body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the drink and dissolves easily into the beaten eggs.
Tea
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the drink.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the tea and stir until it foams. Egg proteins are whisked into the hot tea, so the foam forms without the egg cooking into lumps. Stirring gently keeps the mixture smooth and evenly foamed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, vanilla, cinnamon, egg, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, vanilla, cinnamon, egg, sugar. 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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