Yeah the kettle is just for boiling the water, nobody makes tea in it, that would wreck it. Yes, I'm English.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Kettle boils the water, the TEAPOT steeps and serves the tea. Somehow people end up thinking they're the same thing.
The patriot in me smiles every time I microwave the water. Yankee Doodle, motherfuckers.
What does the burns unit do?
You boil water in a pot if you want to drink a cup off tea late at night and don't want the loud kettle to wake up the whole house.
Your kettle is that loud? The loudest part is the 1s jingle it plays after reaching my desired temp...And the volume isnt much louder than the microwave.
What tf why does it play a jingle and why does it have temp settings?
Didn't know my electric kettle was outdated since it just turns off when it reaches boiling temp.
Jingle as in a signal tone that's not a single beep.
And temp control is very neat to have if you are a serious tea drinker.
Makes it easy to boil water to 60, 70, 80, 90, 95 or 100 °C. And tea can be picky if it shouldnt be bitter ;)
Guess I'm not picky enough to notice a difference between the temps my tea is made at (I just shake the bag until it has broadly the right colour), although I don't have much taste left since covid anyways.
But will have a look for one with multiple temp settings for other purposes, if this one ever kicks the bucket.
bagged tea could care less. if you steep it 1min it will more or less taste similar to doing it the recommended time.
Loose leaf tea will notice it. It will either be too light, too bitter or just right and anything inbetween ;)
I think that green tea bags are an exception, those'd be ruined immediately by boiling temps.
<Shaking the head with a samovar, smiling slightly disgusted about the paper taste.>
Ok, but, why is microwaved water any different the water warmed in a kettle?
This seems like a pointless thing to get worked up over.
Water warmed in a kettle has much more even temperature in all points, which affects the brewing process. Generally, the more even the temperature is, the more consistent and rich is your brew.
I would consider microwave boiling as a makeshift method to produce a mediocre result when you need it anyway, not as a daily driver.
I'm asking this from a place of genuine ignorance: how does the evenness of the heat distribution matter when microwaving a pure liquid? I'm familiar with the microwave's uneven heating qualities. I'm sure we've all bit into food that is scalding hot on the surface and still lukewarm at best in its interior. However, I've always presumed that is a product of microwaving a heterogenous, predominantly solid substance.
So, sure, the microwave applies heat unevenly to the water. But wouldn't the tiny little bits of water which get "over" heated simply diffuse their excess thermal energy into the rest of the homogenous volume in very short order? Furthermore,wouldn't an uneven heat distribution in a mug of water simply lead to convection currents flowing from hot to cold, therefore promoting a relatively even distribution?
The overheated particles will rapidly move upwards, which will lead to relatively even distribution in a layer, but uneven between heights.
In fact, in a large microwaved mug the difference between top and bottom can be as much as 6°C/11°F.
Using a kettle mitigates it for the most part, as it is the bottom that gets continuously heated, and the top is then naturally heated by the vertical currents of hot water, leading to a more even distribution.
Surely stirring the water in the microwaved mug and giving it another round easily solves this issue.
Ideally 2 to 3 rounds, yes.
But at that point, isn't it easier to just buy a kettle? It doesn't require such manipulations, costs next to nothing and allows you to rapidly boil up to 1,5-2L (0,4-0,5 gal) of water for all your needs.
There's a good reason most of the (Western, at least, dk about other places) world uses them and considers them a basic piece of kitchenware.
In the US, kettles are supposedly much slower than a microwave or even a hob due to their grid.
How does a kettle warm the water more evenly but a microwave doesn’t? When a kettle has it’s heating element only at the bottom but a microwave blasts the entire mass of water with energy because it sits on a rotating plate.
Exactly because of that.
Hot water moves upwards, and if you heat it from the bottom, you get a more even result than if you blast it from all sides.
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Went to see Randall doing his book promo and being interviewed by Matt Parker (in the UK) recently and this was his exact position on it
The audience were not on his side 😆
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Loose leaf or bust! Keep the tea bagging to online shooters
Patrick Stewart once said American tea was one thing he would never get used to. "For a proper cup of tea the water must be boiling when it hits the leaves." He really didn't like being brought a carafe of somewhat hot water with a teabag next to it. Even as an American I can relate.
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