Am I the only one that drinks cold brew tea? Organic decaf loose leaf green tea in a tea bag. Put in a pitcher of water and put it in the fridge for 3 hours. Remove tea bag. Pitcher of tea.
My mom would sun brew tea. I grew up in Florida. She’d take one of those Mt. Olive giant pickle jars and set it out in the sun for a few hours on the porch.
I like Turkish apple tea hot, but I don’t really drink other tea hot generally. I use the tea to slow my system down (as I’m doing now.) I have a J pouch and when I get pouchitis (inflammation of the pouch that acts as my colon) I can’t keep food or liquids in my system. For some reason, the tea helps calm it down a bit, stop bleeding and reduce diarrhea. It did the same when I had my colon and was fighting UC. I almost exclusively drink water or tea.
I’m British the entire conversation is deeply offensive to my people. Microwaving??? Putting mugs on a stove??? I am appalled!
I went through a coffee snob phase and got really into French Press coffee. And for that I bought an electric kettle. And its fantastic. Coffee, Tea, instant noodles. The thing is very useful. I love it.
Following the pattern, by kettle they probably meant the turkish combustion tea kettle.
These are called “soba” in turkish and can also be used to heat a room!
WTF is happening in the second image? I need my tea making to be that dramatic.
Takes 1 minute 30 seconds for my induction top to boil water
Doesn’t it depend on the amount of water?
No. If that thing ever ends up running in the ocean, we will all die
induction top
So enchanted. Got it.
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How much are you making? For one single cup it’s quicker in the microwave. Just over 2 minutes. No point in heating a water kettle’s worth. Doesn’t save much time. If you’re making 2 or more cups, then the kettle’s fine.
electric kettles are the way and the light
I tried to get an electric kettle last year, but I guess they don’t make the kind that keep the water hot all day anymore. So I had to get a whole hot water dispenser that keeps it hot for days now.
This is how everyone does it right? Right?! The only people that I know who don’t use an electric kettle are in their 80s. Or is this some cultural thing where people in the US/UK/whatever don’t use electric kettles?
UK here. Everyone has an electric kettle, even those aged 80+. They’re seen as a household essential.
As a grown man in the US, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an electric kettle in real life (only on British TV).
why are you expecting the UK to not use kettles?
US still has residential power from the last century
US has 110 voltage that can’t run a kettle for shit
I really don’t know where this myth comes from. Electric kettles run fine over here.
Even with underpowered 110v an electric kettle still boils water faster than a stovetop IME. Still only a few minutes difference but it’s a difference.
Nah, a high power gas stove beats it in the “heat a cup of water as fast as possible with no regard to energy usage” competition, and is many areas will still cheaper because electricity is so expensive.
It’s not even really about speed. My induction stovetop boils water much much faster than my kettle, but I use the kettle because it can be used unattended, go to a specific temperature, and hold a temperature.
Technology Connections tested that
Yeah I saw that comment elsewhere. I have to assume kettle/stove material/design/etc have some impact as well. Honestly, I trust TC so I’ll defer to them, I need to watch the video.
edit: yeah his testing is in-line with my experience, electric kettles are just faster.
The crazy thing is we have 240V service to the home, but we only use it for large appliances that also use high current. My stove is induction and is one of the things plugs into 240V, and I bet it can boil a cup of water (though in a pot/pan) faster than most kettles.
There are plenty of cases where having the higher voltage in our outlets would be nice. For me it’s probably corded power tools more than kettles. But the vast majority of devices are fine either way.
They’re fast and efficient, by putting the heating element right up against the water, and also safe thanks to shutting off automatically. Great shit!
We have one for every bedroom, for teamergencies
Yep , I never realized how fast they are. 2 cups boils in under 2 minutes.
Electric kettles are actually a scam. Look up any BIFL forum, they’ll all say that stove top kettle is the way to go.
Nobody wants to use a stovetop kettle when they can just push a button and forget about it.
Also an electric kettle costs 10-20€ and lasts ~10 years, it’s also much more energy efficient.
No need to “buy it for life”
Ur body is already made of like 70% water and also its already warm. Just eat the tea bag, thats what i do.
British Cuisine in a nutshell
mmmmmmm…plastic
You gotta take the wrapper off first obviously
The best method (arguably not very energy efficient) is a Zojirushi water boiler that keeps the water hot (175F, 190F, 200F) and boils when a temperature change is detected.
It’s so nice to have if you drink a lot of tea, or as some Asian households prefer, hot vs room temp water.
It is so wrong to talk about temperatures that are near boiling using fahrenheit.
Using cold water is the quickest, most energy-efficient and convenient way to make tea. Or coffee. Or hot chocolate.
How are you making hot chocolate with cold water? Lithium mixed in with the chocolate?
Europeans when they discover that no, most Americans really do not own a kettle rule.
Hmmm. Most of the Americans I know have electric kettles now. It’s probably my most used kitchen gadget. Great for making tea or coffee, or boiling water for oatmeal. I just used it tonight to get some warm water to soak my lizard (not a euphemism) and to thaw out a frozen mouse for a snake. Honestly it gets used probably 5 or 6 times a day most days.
to thaw out a frozen mouse for a snake
Was… Was that an euphemism?
It was not.
Is that weird? I would assume snakes wouldn’t want to eat a frozen mouse.
Not the poster you’re responding to by my spouse has snakes and uses our kettle to boil water to thaw out their mice
let alone an electric kettle
I can’t imagine life without an electric kettle…
I don’t know what happened. We used to be really into tea. Blame the Townshend Acts I guess?
We dumped that tea into the Boston Harbor because we didn’t want that crap.
No we did, it was good tea. That’s what made the message clear, the value being sacrificed. The popular American predilection for tea up until after the Townshend Acts was well documented by de Tocqueville. It was only after that drinking tea was considered “unpatriotic”. Before then we would even eat boiled tea leaves with butter as a side dish. We were mad about the stuff, but as a colony we were only allowed to buy British tea. It was a whole thing.
Anyway I’ve had an electric kettle for ages. It’s more common in Asian-American households perhaps. We didn’t fit in that well in the states, so we went back to the UK. Now I only buy British tea again. Full circle.
ngl there’s a tea from Cornwall that is my absolute favorite black tea now
They do things right out in Cornwall. We were vacationing at lands end when storm Henk made landfall, it was memorable to say the least.
we asian muricans use those kettles for instant ramen lol
Tea, instant ramen, oatmeal, eggs, electric kettles are awesome and really convenient.
Cultural taste can change over time for various reasons. Tea has been inherently traditional to many countries, not as much to others.
we are shifting to boiling taps too now
They’re getting more common. I personally used a stovetop kettle as recently as six years ago. But electric kettles are a world of difference.
Minor problem for me is currently living in a very old house that we don’t own and using a proper electric kettle will pop a breaker. I recently bought a travel kettle that uses like 1/5 the wattage instead
Wait, do Americans not own kettles?
That’s like one of the first things I bought when I moved out.
their shitty electrical grid means kettles take like double the time to boil.
I’ve actually timed my kettle. 15 ounces of water(I have larger mugs than ‘normal’) takes 2 minutes and 34 seconds to be a full rolling boil. I’m really not that concerned.
Great video on this from technology connections. tl;dr it takes more time, but not, like, that much more. We mostly just don’t have a huge tea-drinking culture here.
My family (American) did drink a lot of tea. Surprise surprise, we had a kettle. I did not die of old age from the cumulative weight of all that waiting.
I did not die of old age from the cumulative weight of all that waiting.
Not yet. Just you wait.
chronic exposure to time dramatically increases your chances of getting terminally old.
So why does Japan at 100V have electric kettles everywhere? It’s a cultural reason not the electrical grid.
good point! i don’t know much about their grid, only that it’s 50Hz in the west and 60Hz in the east.
I’ve never heard of anywhere in US using 50Hz and I’ve lived on the West Coast my whole life.
I love that you’ve come into a discussion about Japan’s electrical grid and still assumed that the conversation is about America.
I mean, the conversation started about America’s electric grid. It was ambiguous from context.
that may be because we were talking about japan!
Not that East and West, the East and West.
It’s still just a few minutes. Don’t heat up more water than you are going to use.
Our grid uses the same voltages as Europe. Our houses even generally receive 240V from the line. It’s just that we went with 120V for most appliances and electronics for some reason.
I’d also argue a lot of Americans technically do have electric kettles, and they just don’t realize it because they’re advertised as coffee makers. It’s not ideal, but you can definitely use a drip coffee machine to boil water, and it’ll still be faster than a stove.
Unfortunately for every tea drinker in an American hotel, most coffee makers (at least the drip kind) will make any water boiled inside taste like coffee, unless they’ve been used exclusively for plain boiled water. Maybe a combo tea/coffee drinker wouldn’t mind, but I’ve always found it intolerable.
But it’s a good point about the grid - we have plenty of appliances for coffee that are principally glorified water boilers, and there’s no evidence that our appliance voltage has hampered their popularity at all.
it really doesn’t. european houses generally receive 400V from the line, split into 3 220V phases. you guys get two 120V phases that are fully phase-shifted, rather than 120° offset, and you bridge two phases to get 240 for heavy appliances.
It’s mostly for commercial installations, but you can get 3-phase 480V here if you want it.
I don’t think this has much to do with the grid, though. It’s more that we started with 120V appliances, so that’s what we built our homes to support.
Pretty much every person I know in Canada has an electric kettle and every single office I’ve worked in has one, my kitchen has 15a outlets which is still 1800W. I have a simple gooseneck kettle that I usw mainly for coffee, it’s only 1kW and holds around 750ml, it’s not blisteringly fast but it’s boiled before I’ve ground my coffee.
The whole “120v is holding us back from having kettles” is way overblown (technology connections has a video on electric kettles).
not true, that’s a myth
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In my country (and most of northern Europe I presume), induction stoves are becoming very common. I tossed my electric kettle 7 years ago when I got induction.
It’s faster than a kettle in most of my pots.
I own one because I’m a coffee snob and enjoy pourovers. Before I went down that whole road, no. And neither did anyone I knew well enough to dig through their kitchen
Tea isn’t that popular here although I’d argue in recent years it has been gaining on what it once was. I think where other countries kettles are the norm, here “coffee makers” are the norm.
The majority of the more “popular” form of tea we’d have here is probably considered an abomination onto nuggin elsewhere: sweet tea. (Iced tea with about 628648lbs of sugar in it.)
I think this is the largest reason right here. People are naturally going to reserve their limited counter space for the stuff they use daily. For Americans, that’s more likely to be some kind of coffee maker than an electric kettle.
Growing up where I did, I knew a lot of families that regularly made iced tea. But they usually made a gallon at a time, once or twice a week, and still drank coffee every day - so they had counter top coffee makers, and stovetop kettles that could be stored away the rest of the week.
I had a dedicated saucepan to make iced tea to ensure my tea only tasted like tea.
I guess I’m surprised, I’m in Canada so expected we’d be very similar.
But you also have garbage disposals and I’ve never seen one here.
So, I’m Greek and I also have never used a kettle. In fact, you won’t find one in most households. But all of us have a briki. It’s like a mini pot!
We use it to boil water/make cofee/tea/boil 1-2 eggs etc
I don’t get it either, I’ve always made tea with a small pot. It is just something to heat up water. It has a lid. The only time I started seeing a lot of kettles around was when pour over / V60 / Chemex became fashionable and every place started selling gooseneck kettles.
Are we talking about electric kettles or kettles in general?
An electric kettle is a counter appliance and therefore degeneracy. A stovetop kettle is functional decoration though.
a stovetop kettle is literally bigger takes up a hob takes more time to boil and costs more money
I don’t need the burner space most of the time, compared to the counter space. Plus, like I said, it looks better, so the aesthetics justify the cost. I agree the boil time is a problem, but it’s a small price to pay for clear counters. It’s starts with a kettle. Then you have a toaster, and an air fryer and a coffee grinder and a coffee machine and before you know it your house is 37% counter appliances by mass. The only option is to be an extremist.
1 coffee mug/tea cup of water in the microwave for 1 minute is perfect for a single serving bag of tea. it doesn’t have to be boiling, just hot. 1 min is also not long enough to dangerously superheat water. hot is water is hot water, it doesn’t matter if you do it kettle or microwave.
edit: lol
No. Just no. You get shit cups of tea from coffee houses because the espresso machine doesn’t dispense boiling water. The water needs to be boiling for black tea.
Also how do you microwave water? It takes ages to get water to boil in there and can explode. Use a stove if you must, buy a kettle if you can.
Also if you put a cup, teabag, and milk in the microwave at the same time I will find you, and I won’t just force you to make a good cup of tea I will force you to make a perfect cup of tea that will ressurect the Queen of bloody England!
The culinary arts of my home country may be shit. But you fuckers make it worse by fucking up the most simple recipies!
It takes ages to get water to boil in there and can explode
Theoretically, if it’s an old-style microwave without one of those rotating trays, sure. But, “exploding” requires the water to be completely undisturbed as it’s heated beyond its boiling point. The smallest shake of the mug will disturb it enough that it just heats up and starts steaming/boiling normally if it gets hot.
I use an electric kettle so that I can heat green, oolong, black and herbal teas to the appropriate temps. But, I’m not scared of microwaves causing mugs of water to explode. It’s not that it’s impossible, but with modern microwaves with a rotating tray it goes from extremely uncommon to just not worth thinking about.
Also how do you microwave water? It takes ages to get water to boil in there and can explode.
Uh, I don’t use a microwave but this doesn’t sound correct. My wife boils one mug of water in about 2.5 minutes in the microwave. And I’m curious to see a citation for a microwave safe mug (no metal bits or decorations) full of water exploding in the microwave.
microwaves water for tea
this is why america is fucked
The microwave melts out the microplastics tho
doesn’t have to be boiling
Depends on the tea.
Black generally should. Green absolutely shouldn’t.
How tiny are your mugs
lol no shit many Americans don’t own a kettle, they apparently rank 36th in tea consumption per capita. Breaking news lads, they aren’t as enamored with it as the next higher usage countries.
List of countries by tea consumption per capita
The UK is 3rd, behind Ireland and Turkey. Get your shit together, UK.
Facts.
BUT as an American southerner, our iced tea consumption is through the roof and it fuels our economies, sweet tea and fried chicken
Growing up, we’d make sun tea, and I feel like that’d send a lot of tea drinkers running. In the morning, you’d take a gallon jar of water, a dozen teabags, bunch of sugar, and let it sit in the sun during the day, and drink it that evening.
I loved sun tea growing up, sit your jug out there early when the day is really warming up and by the afternoon you could have a nice icy glass of sweet tea.
Supposedly it’s a bit dangerous because the water doesn’t get hot enough to kill any bacteria that would be on the bags or something. “Refrigerator Tea” is apparently a thing now but I haven’t given it a shot, maybe I will soon, Cold brew coffee is ok, maybe coldbrew tea is great also.
Fun fact, due to the power difference in the US, kettles are much slower here than some other places. You can run a 3kW kettle on the grid in the UK, and boil a single cup’s worth of tea water in about 45 seconds. In the US, most outlets won’t allow more than 1800W, or 1.8kW, so the best kettles will take almost twice as long.
That’s almost a minute and thirty one seconds! Daft.
I just start the kettle first, by the time I’ve got my mug and tea all gathered up the water is ready.
I usually use my kettle to make coffee (handfiltered/pour-over).
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This one extended a little with a great literate addition 😂
wow, actual iambic pentameter, impressive.
the scenography is ass though.🤣🤣🤣 holy shit my sides
Long live King Pidoop.
That was something.
