Americans don't really do electric kettles, largely on account of using 110V mains, which limits power to around 1100W, making it a lot slower than ~2000W electric kettles in the 200+V world.
Americans largely don't use electric kettles because Americans largely don't drink tea at home and thus don't use kettles as often as the rest of the world.
Most households I know don't even own a kettle. Not a stovetop one, not an electric one.
If you were to ask most Americans why they don't have an electric kettle at home they won't say "because I only have 120V outlets in the kitchen." They'll say it is because they don't need a kettle.
I'm American and learned about electric kettles during trips to Asia. They are definitely handy, even at 110V. We make our daily coffee in a French press, so the electric kettle is a no-brainer.
You can't compare a moka pot with a french press, they are fundamentally different things that make different styles of coffee. Espresso and coffee are not identical.
Personally I find french press too grainy, so at home I use aeropress, but when out prefer a properly done pour over filtered coffee. Black of course.
I don’t like to force things on people, but I usually buy people Moka pots. Moka pots ARE better but they make a different coffee. Moka pots are an espresso machine substitute more than a French press substitute.
I do recommend it though. Lots more options for coffee drinks.
I have a pretty nice electric kettle. You can set it to a number of common tea temperatures and it'll hold that temp for up to a half hour. I got it as a wedding gift. I use it about weekly.
If it broke tonight I don't know that I'd bother replacing it tomorrow. I'd probably go a while before I got another kettle. It might even take someone gifting me one before I bother getting one.
Sure, it's marginally faster boiling water than my stove. It's about as fast as my microwave (which is insane at 1650W). It's definitely more efficient, but the break even on that is measured in years probably for even a cheap kettle and decades for this fancy one I have.
I just don't really drink many hot drinks and my microwave does just about as good of a job for getting things hot.
If it gets deposited, it means that it’s not in the water any longer, or at least the concentration in the water has lowered. What you can taste is already in the water before you boil it and does not come from the kettle (well, in kettles that have been used normally with normal water).
If it bothers you, just boiling a bit of slightly diluted vinegar will get rid of it.
> If you care about energy efficiency, you should descale your kettles every so often.
It's not even hard, just boil a solution of 1/2 white vinegar + 1/2 water, and the CaCO3 (+ 2H(+) from the vinegar) changes back to Ca(2+) + CO2 + H2O
You can even see the bubbles from the CO2
I'd recommend using citric acid instead, they sell it here as "lemon salt" so it comes in an easy to use salt shaker. I usually put it in the minimum amount of water required to safely boil it and a small amount depending on how heavy the deposits are (usually up to a spoon is enough for me), though you could also just pour it in and wait.
It works really well and doesn't leave the same smell. When I'd previously used vinegar I'd had to boil another round of water and throw it away just to clean the kettle from the vinegar itself, but with citric acid there's no need (just don't drink the citric acid, it tastes like acid :)).
Do you recommend citric acid over vinegar just because of the smell?
I use vinegar all the time, put in something like 50 ml to the remaining hot water just after making a tea. After a few minutes you can just rinse it and let it evaporate, 5 more mins and the smell is totally gone.
Good thing too, because if you drink demineralised water it pulls electrolytes out of your cells (I think by osmosis) and eventually you also end up with decreasing bone density.
With the added bonus it (imo) smells better. In the US, you can usually find it with pickling supplies or in the cleaning section as coffee pot cleaner
I'd gladly take an electric kettle over what I had to use the last time I was in an American hotel room to heat water, which was the bedside drip coffee maker. Water heated through that still tasted like bad coffee.
I know it's heresy to the British, but you can heat water for tea in the microwave just fine. And at least in my European imagination, every American has a microwave in their home.
I don't heat up leftovers, I just eat them cold. But we do have a microwave (we bought it at the beginning of the pandemic so we could heat up frozen meals--we didn't have one before). I had cold leftover pasta for lunch today. My wife turns up her nose at cold leftovers but I'm not picky.
You can end up superheating the water that way and scalding yourself. I also prefer to control the temperature of my water which you cannot do in a microwave.
It's something to be aware of, but in practice it's very difficult to superheat water at home.
For superheating to occur, you need very pure water in a smooth container with no imperfections. Tap water in most places cannot be superheated because it contains too many minerals, and most ceramic cups aren't smooth enough to prevent boiling.
If you're making tea, an easy way to prevent superheating is to drop the bag in the water before you heat it. Another way is to put a wooden stirrer in the cup.
There's a mythbuster video here where they show water being superheated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OXM4mr_i0, but note that they use distilled water (which nobody drinks) in a Pyrex container (which nobody uses). And they actually use a mug of tap water as a control.
that's not really true. i've superheated tap water at least a dozen times. never had a negative consequence from it, besides having to clean up some water, so it's also not something that really bothers me. from my experience the superheated state can be surprisingly stable, a couple times only explosively boiling over while being poured, instead of the moment I grab the container.
edit: as far as 'nobody' using Pyrex, my preferred container for heating water is a big Pyrex measuring cup.
> It's something to be aware of, but in practice it's very difficult to superheat water at home.
Eh, I've had it happen many times at home. A coffee mug of water comes out of the microwave with just a hint of bubbles. Add sugar/tea/instant coffee and the whole thing instantly bubbles up and spills.
My microwave has a picture of a cup with a spoon in it to warn you to only boil water with something in it. Despite being warned for years not to put anything metal in a microwave it's actually fine to leave a metal spoon in water to stop it from superheating.
You can burn yourself with an oven or a hob. In fact a kitchen is full of ways to maim yourself. So why single out the microwave? A microwave is a tool, tools can be unsafe if used improperly.
But that's partially because 1100W kettles are less _useful_.
I'm mostly a coffee drinker, and use a bean to cup machine for that. But I still use my kettle a good bit, because it's quicker to boil the kettle and then pour into the pan and bring back to the boil than bringing cold water to the boil in the pan. I've got a 3kW kettle, though, if I had a 1100W one I wouldn't do that because it _wouldn't_ be quicker.
Hi end gas ranges will beat a good electric kettle in the USA. (kettle 7min, range <6 min). My wife picked up a used thermidor this last summer and it beats any kettle we’ve had in the USA so far by at least a minute. That said, the kettle is more convenient overall (auto shutoff, auto start, pour from same container), so we end up using it.
In the other hand the US kettle beat the crap out of our old gas range, and even the good range is not nearly as fast as a crappy electric kettle in germany, which clocks in at 4 min.
If you did it must not have been in the United States, or you got lucky.
I've been in over a hundred different hotels in the United States. East coast, West coast, Midwest, Rockies, deep South, South Atlantic coast, pretty much every region. I've probably only had a kettle a handful of times. Nearly universally a drip coffee maker, but practically never a kettle.
Note I'm not talking about the machine with the glass carafe on a small burner with a basket above it. That's a coffee maker in US terms, not an electric kettle.
Lots of Americans drink kind of shit coffee as well, they just largely drink it from drip coffee makers. Alternative brewing methods like french press, aero press, pour over, etc. is starting to become more popular but is definitely still not a predominant way of doing it. And even then, the really bougie people will just have an instant boiler tap in their kitchen instead of taking up counter space with something that takes longer to get hot water.
In my experience drip coffee in a halfway decent machine from halfway decent beans is miles better than most/all instant. Just because drip coffee is convenient doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
The beans you use are more important than the brewing method - if you use a giant tub of stale Folgers it probably won't be great. But grind you own decent beans and a drip machine can be fantastic.
I doubt we live in the same place so I won't recommend anything specific. But I would find local roasters and try to buy beans that were roasted in the last couple of days. Freshness makes a pretty big difference. Finding specific ones you really like will take a bit of trial and error. Single origin if you want interesting/specific flavours, blends if you want something a bit more consistent.
Drip coffee is pretty good, good taste and caffeine content while being pretty simple to brew, a decent machine is cheap as well. It's just a method, the beans you use are what actually count.
I don't drink the bean juice personally, so I've got no skin in the game. To me it definitely seems like a drip coffee maker could make a cup of Joe just about as good as most other methods. I do think it's a combination of the burner burning the coffee after and also a coolness factor (that's how my parents did it, gross!) that drives a lot of the hipness of alternative brewing methods in the US.
But as mentioned I don't really have a horse in this race to begin with. Drink what makes you happy however you brew it. :)
I'm not going to judge which one is better (though I personally prefer espresso, it's a matter of preference), but coffee brewed with different methods definitely tastes differently. Coffee brewed at higher pressure (3~4 bar for moka pot, >9bar for espresso) tend to taste way stronger and more flavorful (which is why they're drank in lower quantities)
Espresso and similar pressure based brewing (Moka Pot) is far superior with equal beans. Tastes way better, more flexibility in creating different drinks, very fast to brew, etc . If it’s too concentrated or hard to drink an espresso shot then you dilute it (for all you black-coffee drinkers, it’s ok to use milk, it’s still coffee).
Different methods of brewing give you different results. If you like (or just want) a stronger flavour, use a pressurised method (espresso, moka pot, etc.), more flavour but the caffeine content is going to be lower than a longer brewing method.
I drink coffee in different ways in different days. If I want a large amount in the morning I go for a drip coffee or french press, the taste is smoother and caffeine content higher. If I want to taste the fullness of the beans I use a moka at home.
I don't see other methods of brewing as objectively better or worse, it depends on the result you expect or want, some days I want an espresso in the morning, some days I want a lot more caffeine, etc.
Also, I just drink coffee, I don't make drinks or turned coffee into a hobby.
The worst part of a standard American drip coffee machine is cleaning it. Too many different nooks and crannies to get gross.
I find pour over to be one of the easiest methods in amortized time. It takes three minutes to make a cup but the clean up time is only another 30 seconds—-throw away the paper filter and rinse the dripper.
Those suck, I use a Moccamaster that's been beating around for at least some 30 years. Bought it second hand and never had an issue in the past 15 years, reliable, easy to clean. It's a delight of design based in functionality for me.
The time since roast matters a lot. Find a local roaster, you can get fresh roasted and it’s unlikely someone that went through the effort of setting up a local roaster is going to buy crap beans. Also, I’d recommend light roast.
> an instant boiler tap in their kitchen instead of taking up counter space with something that takes longer to get hot water.
These things usually serve "near-boiling" water, somewhere around 95 C. This is fine for some cases - e.g. making ramen - but not appropriate for many kinds of tea.
I have such a tap, and I also have an electric kettle. The tap is mostly used to prefill pots with near-boiling water for cooking, so as to not wait for so long for the stove to do it. The kettle is used for tea and coffee.
German in Canada here. I used mine to cook water for pasta as it's usually faster and more efficient than my electric cooktop. Bought one in Canada and it's close to useless for that purpose. My German kettle would bring 1.7L of tap water to a rolling boil in about 4 minutes. My Canadian one needs about 10 minutes to achieve the same.
You're on target here. I have become the dumping ground for misbehaving keurigs from family and have managed to make most of them work or frankenstein parts between them.
I hate the machines and wish this never happened. I was happy with a french press. Curse my urge to not waste things.
I strongly disagree. With a kettle, the whole volume of water is being heated at once and is a uniform temperature. A Keurig or drip coffee maker is only heating a small volume of water at a time. By the time you process a whole liter of water the first bit will have already cooled off a lot. It's a very different process and potentially a very different outcome.
Pretty much. I used my keurig this way for a few years until i realized I'm really not using pods and am only using it for hot water to make tea (via normal steeping). If you brew coffee and then use it for something right after I don't recall there being much coffee taste, but you could probably run a small cup setting to flush things in the pod area a bit if needed.
I've since switched to a Zojirushi water boiler which I adore, especially after learning my keurig wasn't getting hot enough to really brew the tea well.
Ok exactly - in addition to keurigs /nespressos etc mentioned (which I will refuse to buy) - for years the predominant coffee making apparatus in the US has been the automatic drip coffee maker.
European here that doesn't drink tea yet still has a kettle.
> they won't say "because I only have 120V outlets in the kitchen." They'll say it is because they don't need a kettle.
Well no they wouldn't say that, unless they have experience of 240v perhaps.
They might reasonably say that it's too slow. Or maybe they're aware that kettles are 'just slow' and so arrange their lives so that they don't need a kettle, in which case they would say "I don't need a kettle".
My wife drinks tea, I drink coffee. Both of us grudge the time needed to heat water in our 120V American electric kettle compared to European 240V kettles. I^2 makes a big difference.
We use a hot water pot at home, a Zojirushi. Never have to bother with hot water, it's always available and the thing uses a negligible amount of electricity (we're almost entirely on solar anyway, so it's a moot point for our family) comparable to all of our other appliances.
Yeah it's just not. I have one of those ridiculous bazillion-BTU gas burners and I still prefer to boil water using a combination of a 120V tea kettle (1L) and an 120V portable induction cooker. An installed 240V range is even faster, but I don't have one of those.
I'm a European who finds kettles stupid. I own one because someone didn't appreciate my house's lack of kettle and got one despite my protestations. I own (1) a induction stovetop, (2) a microwave… both will perfectly boil water just as fast. Why do I want to waste counter space on a kettle. My kitchen is tiny.
I have the same complaint about a ricecooker. It's perfectly easy to cook rice in a pot. Sure it's convenient to use the automated device, but it's wasteful.
Cooking perfect rice in a pot takes technique, for sure. But it's not that hard, and if you do it right it comes out perfect just like a rice cooker.
Wash your rice. Throw in cold pot with 1:1 ratio of rice to water, + a bit extra to account for evaporation[1]. Bring to a full boil. As soon as it's boiling, drop the heat to the lowest setting and cover your pot as tight as you can and let it steam itself until ready. When ready, fluff it immediately.
[1]: the precise amount extra depends on your setup, tbh… how tight your lid seal is, how much surface area your saucepan exposes, etc. but usually an extra 25% will be about right
Continuous vs noncontinuous overcurrent rating.[1] Depending how you get your appliance approved, you can draw more. The actual requirement is 3 hours, but like all regulations you have to look at intended usage:
The comment I replied to said the U.S. was limited to around 1100W which is why The U.S. doesn't use tea kettles.
I reply with a very commonly used device that uses over 63% more power than 1100W showing that obviously isn't the reason the U.S. doesn't use tea kettles.
And you reply with essentially, "Oh, but that's because the hair dryer isn't used continuously for 3 hours". Did you think a tea kettle is used for 3 hours continuously?
Please actually read what I said: there are differences in the appliance approval process which determines how much continuous power you can draw from an electrical circuit.
Why would a manufacturer bother trying to prove discontinuous draw when they can just current limit, use the same element they do everywhere else with the same resistance, and not worry about it?
I read what you wrote but still fail to see what it has to do with a claim that 1100W is the limit on US circuits and that is the reason Americans don’t use electric kettles.
> Americans don't really do electric kettles, largely on account of using 110V mains, which limits power to around 1100W
Most sources I can find indicate the usual (but not maximum) draw of US electric kettles 1500W, and checking a few popular models confirms that 1500W is common.
I don't have a kettle because I have a hot water tap that gives me water at more than 200F. If I need it boiling, it takes a very short period of time on the range to get it there. Those are relatively common, almost every one of my friends and family have one too.
It’s not that slow. 1. They sell plenty of kettles in the US (touch grass and go to Target sometime or something) - a large portion of those sales are probably to Asian households. It is simply that if you have a drip coffee maker and don’t drink much tea why do you need a kettle.
No idea where this dumb myth comes from - kettles are not hard to find in the US, they work fine - there is a ton of demand it is just relatively miniscule.
I think it’s a hangover from when it was true - fairly recently in a human-lifespan timescale. I moved to the SF Bay Area from the UK 20 years ago, and had to buy a weird kettle from Amazon. None of the nearby stores had a decent one. That’s definitely not true now though.
I had an electric kettle growing up, but nobody else I knew/know has one. I don't know why, they're extremely practical, don't take up much space, and don't cost much money unless you get a fancy temperature-controlled one.
