Tea Punch, Green Tea, Brandy and Rum from 1862
Reader ratingsA quart of strong green tea poured into hot brandy, rum, lump sugar rubbed on lemon peel and lemon juice: Jerry Thomas’s 1862 tea punch, once served alight.
- Recipe makes
- About 6 cups, 12 punch cups
- Prep
- Total
Steep the tea for about 3 minutes while the bowl warms.
Tea punch in a pewter bowl with a ladle, two punch cups, a lemon and lumps of sugar.
The story behind the recipe
Tea punch is hot punch made with green tea in place of water: a quart of strong tea poured into brandy, rum, sugar and lemon. Jerry Thomas printed it in How to Mix Drinks in 1862, an ounce of “the best green tea” to a quart of boiling water, poured into a silver or other metal bowl already heated before the fire, holding half a pint each of “good brandy” and rum, a quarter pound of lump sugar and the juice of a large lemon. Then: “Set these a-light, and pour in the tea gradually.”
Poured burning
The punch was meant to arrive in flames. Thomas says it “will remain burning for some time, and is to be poured in that state into the glasses,” and that a china bowl will do, “but in that case the flame goes off more rapidly.” His one refinement: rub a few lumps of the sugar over the lemon peel first, so they take up its oil, “in order to increase the flavor.”
Green tea turns up in his other punches too: his English Milk Punch, in the same book, calls for “strong green tea,” a habit told in How Milk Made Franklin’s Punch Clear. For the bowl without the spirits, there is an Alcohol-Free Tea Punch.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
An ounce of tea to a quart is nearly four times a normal pot, so steep it briefly, about three minutes, and strain it; longer turns it bitter. We leave out the flame from the steps. Burning a bowl of warm spirits is easy to start and hard to control, and pouring it alight into glasses is how people get burned. If you want the show, read the note at the end first.
Made as printed, the bowl comes to about 6 cups at roughly 13% alcohol, about as strong as wine, and serves twelve small cups.
68. Tea Punch.
Make an infusion of the best green tea, an ounce to a quart of boiling water; put before the fire a silver or other metal bowl, to become quite hot, and then put into it
½ pint of good brandy. ½ do. rum. ¼ lb. of lump-sugar. The juice of a large lemon.
Set these a-light, and pour in the tea gradually, mixing it from time to time with a ladle; it will remain burning for some time, and is to be poured in that state into the glasses; in order to increase the flavor, a few lumps of the sugar should be rubbed over the lemon peel. This punch may be made in a china bowl, but in that case the flame goes off more rapidly.
Recipe makes: About 6 cups, 12 punch cups
Ingredients
For About 6 cups, 12 punch cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 6 cups, 12 punch cups.
- Loose green tea28 g
- Boiling water4 cups
- Large lemon1
- Sugar cubes115 g
- Brandy1 cup
- Jamaica rum1 cup
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 28 g loose green tea
- 4 cups boiling water
- 1 large lemon
- 115 g sugar cubes
- 1 cup brandy
- 1 cup Jamaica rum
Equipment
Kettle
Teapot or heatproof jug
Fine strainer
Punch bowl
Ladle and heatproof cups
Instructions
Warm the punch bowl by filling it with hot water; leave it to stand.
Put the loose green tea in a teapot or heatproof jug, pour on the boiling water and steep for about 3 minutes.
Meanwhile, rub a few of the sugar cubes hard over the skin of the large lemon until they turn yellow, then squeeze and strain the lemon’s juice.
Empty the bowl and dry it. Put in all the sugar, the lemon juice, the brandy and the Jamaica rum.
Strain the hot tea into the bowl gradually, stirring with the ladle until the sugar has dissolved.
Ladle into punch cups and serve hot.
Nutrition
130calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 6 cups, 12 punch cups
- Servings
- 12
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof brandy and rum, granulated sugar, lemon juice and brewed green tea, for one 1/2-cup punch cup.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is Thomas’s bowl as printed. For half a bowl, halve everything.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: Thomas names no rum; Jamaica rum is our choice. We do not set the spirits alight, and the steeping time for the tea is ours, since Thomas gives none. Warming the bowl with hot water in place of setting it before the fire, and straining the tea and the lemon juice, are ours too. His pint is a US pint, so half a pint is 1 cup; a quarter pound of lump sugar is about 115 g of sugar cubes, and an ounce of tea is 28 g.
Strength: 2 cups of spirits at 40% is 0.8 cup of alcohol in about 6 cups of punch, so about 13% before any is burned off. A 1/2-cup punch cup holds a little under one US standard drink.
If you do light it, as Thomas did: use a metal bowl on a heatproof surface, away from anything that can catch, warm the spirits only slightly, have the lid ready before you light them, light them with a long match before any tea goes in, never add more spirit to a burning bowl, and pour the tea in slowly from a jug held to the side. Put the flame out with a metal lid or tray before anyone ladles or carries the bowl, and never pour burning punch into glasses. The flames are pale blue and hard to see in a lit room.
Storage
Best served hot as soon as it is made.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862), No. 68, “Tea Punch”, pp. 36–37
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Punches & Cups
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- Christmas
- Season
- Winter