Name: Linseed Tea
Ingredients: 11 oz. whole linseed; 4 oz. liquorice; ½ oz. sugar candy; juice of ½ lemon; finely-cut rind of ½ lemon; 1 pint cold water

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

Prepare

Wash and drain the linseed.

Make the tea

Simmer the linseed with the cold water, liquorice, and lemon rind for about 40 minutes.
Add the sugar candy and stir until dissolved.
Strain the mixture and stir in the lemon juice.

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 liquid, giving the tea a soft, slightly viscous body.
Liquorice: Adds its naturally sweet, distinctive root flavour to the infusion.
Sugar candy: Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

“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.