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Tea with Lemon Juice
This is not a mere fad or "foreign fashion" without foundation of reason. There is a scientific fact beneath the surface. Where either lime or lemon juice is used in the clear tea (with or without sugar) there is little possibility of harm resulting from the effect of the tea (such as may be felt when tea, pure and simple, is used) since the citric acid of the fruit offsets the tannic acid of the tea, rendering it refreshing and wholesome. (It is perhaps needless to add that the black, perfectly cured teas should be used; not the green or mixed teas.) LEMON "SQUASH" OR SIMPLE LEMONADE For a good plain lemonade (called "Lemon Squash" by our British cousins) use one lemon to one pint of water, adding very little or no sugar if one wishes the most cooling effect, as sugar "evolves heat during oxidation," and should be avoided only a degree less than alcohol in hot weather.
SIMPLE EGG LEMONADE (For One) Beat the white and yolk of one egg, separately, then together, and add one tablespoonful of sugar, the juice of one lemon and a coffee cupful of water, then whip again. Strain this, pouring it on to a large tablespoonful of shaved ice; shake up and pour into glass from which it is to be served.
EGG LEMONADE WITH SHERRY (In Quantity) Slice thin four lemons, add six dessertspoonfuls of sugar and pour over this three pints of boiling water. Let stand several hours, then add one-half pint of sherry. Strain and add the well-whipped whites of the four eggs and a pinch of salt. Pack ice around the pitcher and when chilled serve.
The tea note and the plain lemonade are harmless enough, but both egg lemonades are built on raw egg that is never heated at any point, and the second sits for hours at room temperature before serving.
- Raw egg, never cookedIn Simple Egg Lemonade the whole beaten egg is whipped into cold water and ice and drunk immediately; in the sherry version the raw whites go into a chilled pitcher. Neither reaches any temperature that would kill Salmonella, and neither the lemon juice nor the half-pint of sherry across three pints of liquid is remotely sufficient to make the eggs safe. If you want a foamed egg drink, use a current recipe built on pasteurised eggs.
- The steeping stepThe sherry version has sliced lemons and sugar sitting in water "several hours" before anything is chilled. That is a long ambient hold in a sweet liquid, and the eggs are added afterwards with no further treatment.
- The tannic acid claimCitric acid does not neutralise or "offset" tannins in any chemical sense. Lemon does lighten the colour of black tea, because acid shifts the theaflavin and thearubigin pigments, which is very likely what was being observed and then explained backwards.
- Sugar "evolves heat during oxidation"A piece of period thermodynamic reasoning applied where it does not belong. Metabolising sugar releases energy, but drinking sweetened lemonade does not measurably warm you; leave the sugar out or in to taste.
- Archaic measuresA dessertspoonful is two teaspoons, so six of them is about four tablespoons of sugar for three pints. A coffee cupful is not a fixed measure; it is usually reckoned at somewhere between six and eight fluid ounces, smaller than a modern mug.
- Lemon squash proportionsOne lemon to a pint of water is a thin, sharp drink by modern taste, closer to lemon water than to the cordial-based squash sold in Britain today. Two lemons to the pint with a little sugar is nearer what most people now expect.
- Black tea onlyThe instruction to use "perfectly cured" black tea rather than green or mixed is given without any reason in the text itself; it may be as much a matter of flavour as of the chemistry the passage is arguing for.
Tea with lemon is usually traced to Russia, where it was served in glasses with a slice of lemon, and Anglo-American writers of the late nineteenth century were still arguing about whether the habit was affectation or hygiene. This page comes down firmly on the side of hygiene, and does so in the voice of the era: tea was widely suspected of ruining digestion through its tannin, and any addition that seemed to blunt that effect was welcomed and then given a scientific-sounding justification. The egg lemonades belong to a different tradition, the domestic invalid drink, which sat somewhere between refreshment and medicine. Beaten egg in a sweetened, acidulated liquid was common nourishment for the feverish and the convalescent in the nineteenth century, and the sherry version is the same idea dressed for a party, close cousin to egg nog and to milk punch.