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Lemon Tea
A cooling and invigorating drink may be made as follows. Make some tea rather weak, and pour it quickly from the leaves. Add an equal measure of lemondae, and sugar to taste. When extra acidity is wanted a pinch of citric acid may be added. This beverage may be taken either hot or cold, and it is improved by icing.
A two-ingredient cooler that depends entirely on the tea being brewed weak and drawn off the leaves fast, before tannin builds up.
- The hinge: pour it off the leavesTea left sitting on the leaves turns bitter and astringent, which is why the recipe says to pour it quickly. Two to three minutes for black tea, then strain completely.
- "Rather weak"Roughly half the leaf you would normally use, or the same leaf and half the time. Aim for a brew you would find thin on its own, since the lemonade dilutes it by half again.
- LemondaeA printer's slip for lemonade. The likeliest reading is homemade still lemonade, a mix of lemon juice, sugar and water, though bottled aerated lemonade was also on sale by this date.
- Equal measureOne to one by volume, which gives a drink that tastes mostly of lemon. If you want the tea to read, go two parts tea to one part lemonade and adjust the sugar down.
- Citric acidFood-grade citric acid, sold for preserving and brewing, is what is meant. A pinch is enough for a pint; it sharpens without adding more liquid, but it brings no lemon aroma, so use extra juice if flavour rather than sourness is what is missing.
- SugarDissolve it in the hot tea before combining, or use a sugar syrup. Granulated sugar stirred into a cold drink will sit on the bottom.
- IcingIf you plan to serve it cold, brew the tea rather stronger than the 'rather weak' called for and pour it over ice, so melting ice does not thin it past the point of tasting like anything.
- Yield250 ml of tea and 250 ml of lemonade makes two modest tumblers; scale up in a jug for a hot afternoon.
Iced tea was spreading through these decades on both sides of the Atlantic, helped along by the falling price of ice and of tea itself after the Indian and Ceylon plantations came into full production. The recommendation that it be drunk "either hot or cold" is at least suggestive of a period when cold drinks were not yet the default. Citric acid appearing as a pantry item is worth noting too it was sold cheaply by chemists and grocers for jam-making, lemonade powders and soft drinks, and Victorian cookery books reach for it freely where a modern one would simply call for more lemon.