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Tea-punch

A citrusy, sweetened tea infused with rum, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Green tea and rum work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 60 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Tea-punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the punch

  1. Peel the thin yellow rind from the lemons and squeeze the juice.

  2. Add the lemon juice and rind to the sugar.

  3. Pour the boiling tea over the sugar mixture.

  4. Stir in the rum.

Bottle and serve

  1. Bottle the mixture and let it stand for use.

  2. Dilute with ice 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. Green tea + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + green teatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Lemons
Juice adds sourness, and the rind oils add a bright, fragrant aroma.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the sourness of the lemon juice.
Green tea
Provides astringent tannins and a grassy flavor that the sugar softens.
Jamaica rum
Adds warmth, aroma and a strong spirited flavor to the punch.

The step that matters

Dilute with ice before serving. Melting ice chills the punch and adds water, which softens its strength. Too little ice leaves the punch harsh and strong, while too much makes it thin and watery.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against green tea, sugar, rum. 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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