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Drink

Polish Tea

Polish Tea is a beverage made with beer, wine, sugar, lemon, egg yolks, maraschino, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Polish Tea

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, heat the white beer until it boils and froths.

  2. Add the sugar and white wine, stirring to combine.

  3. Whisk in the beaten egg yolks until well mixed.

  4. Stir in the lemon rind and pulp, cinnamon, and maraschino.

  5. Boil the mixture once 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.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Beer + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

White beer
Forms the liquid base and carries the sweet, spiced flavour of the drink.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm liquid slightly and add richness and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aromatic citrus oils to the drink.
Maraschino liqueur
Adds sweetness and a distinct cherry-almond aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture once before serving. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so heat gently and bring the mixture to a boil only once, stirring steadily, to keep the drink smooth and fully cooked.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, white wine, sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, white wine, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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