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Tea Punch
Prepare tea as for Russian Tea and serve with a thin slice of lemon and lump sugar soaked in brandy.
A one-line recipe that leans entirely on a neighboring one, so the work is in filling out what the original assumed its reader already knew.
- What "Russian Tea" means hereIn American books of this period it generally means strong black tea brewed and served clear — no milk — with lemon. For a strong brew, about 1 tablespoon of loose black tea per cup of just-boiled water.
- Steeping timeThree to five minutes for black tea, then strain the leaves out completely. Tea left sitting on its leaves turns tannic and bitter, and a punch built on it cannot be rescued with sugar.
- Lump sugarA sugar cube. Soak one per glass in brandy for a minute or two so it is saturated but not dissolved; it sweetens the drink slowly as it goes down.
- No quantities givenThe original leaves proportions entirely to the cook. A workable ratio is 4 cups strong brewed tea, the juice of one lemon, and one brandy-soaked cube per serving, adjusted to taste.
- YieldAs written, one glass at a time. For a punch bowl, scale to about 1 quart of strong tea for six, and float the lemon slices rather than stirring them in so the pith does not go bitter.
Punch and tea have long been associated, though tea's place among the drink's bases appears to be a later development; "tea punch" survived into late Victorian and Edwardian entertaining as a lighter, sometimes barely alcoholic option for afternoon receptions. The "Russian" tea it builds on is generally taken to refer to the practice of drinking tea clear with lemon rather than with milk, a style Americans are often said to have associated with the samovar and taken up in the second half of the nineteenth century. The brandy-soaked lump of sugar is reportedly an older European table habit, the lump soaked and set at the bottom of the glass or eaten alongside.