Maybe it's the fact that in the US, you have 120V/10A max, so your kettles are 1200W peak and therefore take twice as long as ours at 240V/10A and thus 2400W? I don't know. I just find that staggering that someone could not have an electric kettle.
As an aside, it's always been amazing to me that the 'standard' coffee you buy here is espresso, everyhwere, whereas the standard there to my knowledge is usually drip or french press. That in itself (that entire nations can have substantially different ways of making 'coffee') is pretty incredible to me.
All that said, the whole 'makes 5 or 6 cups minimum' problem is the one I've always faced with making coffee at home. I might actually pick one of these things up if it really does solve that and really deliver something that's more towards espresso rather than drip/press.
The AeroPress is good. But it's not close to espresso at all. If you over dose and are prepared to push very slowly for a long time, you can get some espresso like flavours out of it, but this can take a while.
That said the AeroPress is really worth it. The filters are truly reusable. I still have not gone through my original pack of filters that I got with mine several years ago.
Kettles have frequently been cited as the source of surges in power usage during the commercial breaks of popular TV shows. For example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5059904.stm
(in my case I don't drink a lot of hot tea, but I do drink a lot of iced tea, and a worthwhile amount of that is larger than what most kettles can do -- I typically brew a gallon or more at a time)
And with that, I'm of for a brew and to recuperate...
The first time I realized that every home didn't own an automatic drip coffee pot, I was also aghast.
* - or conciously aware of seeing it. I might have seen it and it was just background noise.
I remember once I watched a friend's cats while he was on extended vacation back home in China.
You try very hard to be accommodating when someone capable of covering your pager shift asks for a favor, because you know the currency in which that favor is to be repaid. Besides, he was senior to me (in terms of skill) and got me the job in the first place, so I kinda owed him at the outset. But it's almost always worth it to put in a lot of effort to have more than one person who can cover your pager feel like they owe you. But still, I'll totally clean out your cat's liter box if I think I can get you to cover my pager.
Anyhow, the weird thing was that he had like six electric kettles scattered throughout his house; and most of them were in 'sleep mode' - they were still on and plugged in and ready to dispense water fairly quickly. I guess the idea was that they were heavily insulated, so it didn't take a lot to keep the water warm?
Being me, I unplugged them all.
I've considered a kettle for myself, but the kettles I've used, mostly in ersatz office situations, all took a pretty long time to warm up from 'cold' - and all of them were nasty, because some asshole decided to put tea (or something) directly in the kettle.
What I find funny is that I bought one of those fancy super-automatic espresso machines of craigslist; You know, one of those brushed-aluminum deals where you pour whole beans in the top and just press a button? It doesn't take that long to warm up, and it's on a 5-15r (15 amps of 120v) - I know the reservoir on this thing is room-temperature, and it's pretty quick to warm up. Much faster than any kettle I've tried.
It makes pretty good espresso, too. Not as good as, say, chromatic coffee, or even B2 in san jose, but it beats the heck out of starbucks, and I don't have to put on pants. It does require periodic work, which I don't mind. I like working on mechanical things. Just don't make me do it in the morning, you know? As for effort expended to get my coffee? it's gotta be even easier than the aeropress. Expensive, though. I think I paid $300 for mine, and it's about 4x that new.
You can buy fast boil kettles which tend to be noisy.
I am surprised that kettles don't have a think skin of insulation. I sometimes wonder how much energy could be saved by micro-enhancements like that.
But my espresso machine, it's got a pretty big (room temperature) reservoir, and only heats up the water as-needed. I mean, I probably have to fill it every second day, and that's with two people using it, and using the steamer.
Especially when my performance is impaired due to withdrawal, it seems a reasonable optimization to save the 'fill the damn thing up, but not too much' step.
>I am surprised that kettles don't have a think skin of insulation. I sometimes wonder how much energy could be saved by micro-enhancements like that.
All the electric kettles I've seen did have very thick insulation; it looked like they were intended to be left on or in standby all the time.
I've never seen an electric kettle in anyone's home, but almost everyone I know does have a stovetop kettle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere#North_American_domestic_...
Prior to harmonisation Europe was mostly 220V so 230v was the average of the two common systems (in reality because of tolerances there are big overlaps).
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/etc/guide-voltageoptimisation.ph...
Interestingly while the standard is 230v the average supply in the UK is 242V (but within the tolerance of the standard).
Boiling one or two cups of water won't take too long (30 sec ? 1min) on a gas or IH stove, it's easier to clean, no electric components, no maintenance, you can roughly adjust the temperature you want (i.e some teas are best at ~80°C), and it works with a gas burner during black outs.
[0] for home use of course. I don't see any way an hotel could provide a classic kettle without a full kitchen corner.
Anywhere people don't drink that much tea, use a Moka pot for coffee, and boil the milk.
And always remember, no oil in the pasta water!!
1) http://www.teausa.com/14655/tea-fact-sheet
ps: the fact sheet in 1 seems to be the basis of a whole lot of magazine articles. It seems like "tea facts" is quite the fill-in article.
and don't inadvertently superheat the water.
it really depends on what body part touches it, and where the electricity wants to go (ground). the longer the path, the more dangerous it is.
I got hit once, from a broken electric kettle, in fact :) I had accidentally dropped the thing, some plastic bit had broken off and exposed some metal strip that was bent out of shape (in the base part, that the kettle part gets power from). Let's attribute it to not having had my morning coffee yet, when I figured hey let's bend that bit back to where it should be, not realizing the thing was still plugged in.
It hurt. It felt literally as quite a shock. But it was just my arm. A jolt, like when you're holding a stick and someone hits that stick with another stick really hard. Except a bit harder than that. I remember feeling quite shaken afterwards, could be adrenaline, could be my nerves being all agitated, I dunno.
After a few minutes I was fine again.
Guess I was lucky, maybe?
The very same day I got a new electric kettle (the cheapest ones are just €10), because really for me it's in indispensable kitchen tool, like the microwave or a chef's knife.
Of course, it was all for nothing when as a kid I put a braddle or something in the top hole and then mucked around with the bottom hole. Also, I imagine that the foot injuries you get in the UK are also greater because the plugs typically face up (although I've only seen someone actually impale their foot on a holiday in America). But yes, we have the safest sockets in the world according to my old schoolteacher.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Uk_13a_d... [2] http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/533618/3871293/0/1182923133/Br...
Age Votes
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0-10 65
11-15 42
16-20 552
21-25 2030
26-30 2400
31-35 1532
36-40 735
41-45 359
46-50 148
51-55 84
56-60 44
61+ 52
Having been exposed to them now, and even more so after reading this article, I do plan to buy myself an electric kettle though.
FWIW, everyone I know has always heated water in a saucepan or kettle on the stovetop.
However, dorm rooms often do allow them (heats up water for ramen), but it isn't universal, and I'm imagining most kids are like "WTF is this," looks it up and learns about it for the firs time.
Try cold-brewed coffee if you're really going for low acidity. It makes a delicious iced coffee.
http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/do-it-yourself/2011/0...
I don't know anything about aeropress, but it is not a good idea to buy a plastic electric kettle. stainless steel ones are better.
What are you talking about? Even the link you shared had comments saying that even the minimum boiling time was over 2 minutes.
1. If you've never owned an electric kettle, you may not know that they will boil water in mere seconds (!) and are a key part in making an Aeropress practical. (And they're cheap: http://goo.gl/8dVnP2)
2. If you ever get heartburn and drink coffee, you MUST buy one of these ASAP, it will help immensely. Fast-brewed coffees have very low acidity, so you should treat yourself with aeropress (or Starbucks Clover coffee, another fast-brewed method) if you have this problem... you will probably feel better.
3. That said, these things brew a coffee that is like a hybrid between espresso and drip coffee, so if that sounds bad/good to you, you'll feel about the coffee you get from this the same way.
4. An aeropress is the easiest to clean kitchen appliance I've ever owned. You will NOT think to yourself "boy this coffeemaker could probably use a thorough cleaning" every time you want a cup of coffee... no such anxiety with this device.