This gave me exactly the same vibe as I got from Simon being told by Dave that americans don't have electric kettles. From the stream on 14.05.
The same reaction Simon had finding out americans don't really use electric kettles.
Bro I just found out the same time as Simon that Americans don't have electric kettles. Wtf this is insane. I'm an Englishman also, and the kettle & toaster are the first two things you buy when you move out!
Their mains are only ~120v whilst our mains are typically 240v. So they boil water on the stove as apposed to waiting until the heat death of the Universe for their electric kettle to finally boil.
🇺🇸120V rated at up to 15A
Vs
🇬🇧240V rated at up to 13A.
That’s the 1.8kW max vs 3.1kW
Yeah, legit. Here in the states, we are screwed when it comes to that. Hence why we use other methods.
You can use the microwave, but I've found a cheap saucepan made of the right metal will heat up 1 cup of water in maybe two minutes. That's all that saucepan is used for: tea water or instant ramen water.
Probably helps that we got a new hot water heater and the water can come out at 160°F (71.1°C) when fully cranked.
That’s good, but you’ll find while that’s probably hot enough for coffee, the tea will be rank! What about a stovetop kettle instead? We actually used those all the time - we haven’t always used electric kettles. Those stovetop ones usually have a whistle too, so you don’t have to watch it!
I honestly don't drink tea often enough to have a need for a stovetop kettle. I'm still heating it up to boiling, sorry if that was misunderstood, just in a small cheap sauce pan from 160° to boiling, not from normal tap temp to boiling. It's faster when it's most of the way there.
Speaking of rank tea, there's people here in the states that make "sun tea". They put water in a gallon glass jug with a bunch of tea bags and let it "brew" in the sun during the summer for days at a time. Mind you, it never gets out of the bacteria safety zone in temp, so they risk getting sick every time, my mother being one of them.
160…F? What’s that, 50°C? Is that from the hot tap? Ugh sun tea sounds disgusting!
160…F? What’s that, 50°C? Is that from the hot tap?
71.1°C, and yes it's from the hot tap. Hot enough to burn you.
Ugh sun tea sounds disgusting!
I tried it once as a kid. Didn't like it. Now, knowing the best temp for bacteria to grow, I won't touch it. I've seen my mom leave it outside all day for up to a week. She'll put it in the fridge at night, but that only makes some bacteria dormant. It's revolting.
We don't need no gad damn "kettle"!
We go and buy a coffee maker, like a REAL Murican!
American with an electric kettle here! I swear by it. Mine’s a $25 cheapie, but it’s changed my tea game. It has an optional infuser basket that I use constantly. The $50 one I bought my mom has adjustable temps and a keep warm setting.
I’m pretty sure that I learned about electric kettles from a similar tumblr post bashing on us for microwaving water. The kettle just makes so much more sense! I’m never nuking a mug of water again.
I'm an American who has an electric kettle, but... I use it for coffee.
Same, and to be fair I am in love with it and made everyone else I know get one.
Americans absolutely have electric kettles. I don't own a toaster though and would rarely use it if I did.
^
We may be related.
I have so many questions. What does tea steeped in cold water taste like? How do those mugs not explode? How are they picking them up?
Weak tea, bro.
You can cold brew tea over the course of a few hours, but I wouldn’t recommend just sticking a tea bag into a cold glass of water and just drinking it after a few minutes.
Don’t put your mug on a hot stove.
One time I left a plate on a burner I didn't realize was still on, & it literally snapped in two.
It tastes like iced tea?
I don't think that's true because that WOULD mean there's no point in boiling the water when making the tea. If it is true, then I wasted a lot of time & energy boiling water to make tea I was just going to stick in the fridge anyway.
Ice tea is made by brewing tea normally and then cooling it down. There is, however, something called cold brew tea. Similar to the concept of cold brew coffee.
Boiling it makes it steep faster, but yes, tea will steep in cold water.
Then part of me wishes you didn't tell me that. I now just buy premade tea from the store, so this knowledge is too late to help me.
I'm very sorry. If you get black tea bags and berry tea bags and put two of each in a regular size pitcher, you'll end up with a truly lovely iced tea. I usually boil the first part of the water to steep them quickly, then fill it with cold water to the top and put it in the fridge with the bags still in it.
That does sound good. The thing is I'd usually just let the tea sit overnight anyway, so I didn't really need the speed. However, at a certain point, I realize I could take advantage of the freshly-boiled tea to have a cup or so of hot tea & only stick it in the fridge when it got lukewarm. So, I guess it wasn't a total waste. Also toward the end I started flavoring it with honey so I didn't need to put ungodly amounts of sugar in it.
What black tea and berry tea do you recommend? I really want to try this, but I am unsure if I have the right black tea.
I use plain Lipton black tea and Twinings wild berry tea!
You ought to try sun tea
You can just stop buying it and make your own
Is not gonna taste the same in most cases tho; the heat breaks down stuff and the flavor profile changes with it - a cold brew is not necessarily bad, there's tea made specifically with them in mind, but is gonna be different.
After like, seven years!
It’ll taste like shit though, cos the waters got to boiling. Otherwise it’ll be rank.
Not good iced tea. Gotta brew it hot then chill it. Especially if you are making sweet tea. If you put the sugar in cold, it won't dissolve properly, and your tea will be barely sweetened and have grainy sugary sludge on the bottom.
Boil that shit, add your sugar, stir it, add your tea, steep for 10 minutes, chill, and serve. Yum.
You mean I can make iced tea this way? Then why am I buying the powder form all this time? /s
No, iced tea is made by brewing very strong hot tea and then cooling it.
If your making sweet iced tea you put the sugar in while it's hot so it can absorb more sugar.
Putting a teabag in cold water makes it weak and off-tasting.
This is excluding lipton, which is actually dehydrated tea flakes, not tea leaves which is why it can brew cold so quickly.
If your making sweet iced tea you put the sugar in while it's hot so it can absorb more sugar.
There's debate on that. Some people insist on putting the sugar in cold so you don't risk caramelising it.
Heresy! Sacrilege! You can't reach peak sugar saturation without heat, and the caramelization is a bonus! /hj
As a scientist, I have to be a little pedantic here. Water doesn't absorb sugar. It becomes saturated and you can't force it to take up more than it can hold. (In some cases you can, such as the creation of rock candy, but it requires specific conditions and will crystallize at lower than boiling temperatures.) If you put too much sugar in, you will ruin your tea with sludge and sugar crystals.
Cold water is just as capable of being saturated by sugar, it just takes more manual agitation and a longer period of time. With enough stirring and time, you'll end up with just as sweet a tea.
Fair point, I'll always welcome scientific accuracy. :)
No. You don’t make iced tea with cold water
Yes, you absolutely can. It will take longer and the taste profile will be slightly different, but IT WILL WORK AND YOU WILL GET ICED TEA.
Do I do it? No. But it is possible. I could sit here and explain the science behind it all, but I'm really not in the mood.
I didn’t say you can’t. I said you don’t. Not if you want good tea.
We actually have a brand of tea here that's made specifically for steeping in cold water. It's for making something refreshing in the summer
I had a similar shocked reaction when I learned this just a few years ago.
I'm Australian. I don't even drink much tea nowadays.
But, like ... boiling water is super useful, even outside of tea drinking. My mind boggles.
Finding electric kettles here in the US is harder than I expected! They also take about twice as long as they do in Aus !
You can buy stove kettles almost everywhere and if you have gas then they take about 5 min to boil. Electric/convection stoves take forever!!!
Everyone I know here just microwaves a cup if they only need one-two cups
I have never been into a Target in the States that didn’t have a 1L plastic/glass electric kettle on sale for $20 or an okay-quality Bodum gooseneck for 30.
It's not as if Americans don't own kettles. We usually do. They're just not electric. You have to put them on the stove.
I use a saucepan whenever I want to boil water. I can't comprehend the need for a dedicated piece of kitchenware.
Whereas I can't comprehend having to use the stove every time I want to make a cup of tea/coffee!
Part of it is also the difference in electrical standards, our normal outlets are 120v while the UK uses 240v. So our kettle would need twice the amperage, or more likely they would just be much slower to where it's faster to use the stove. Our stoves are 240v. Or gas.
Yeah, the wattage thing blows my mind.
But then again, American power outlets don't have buttons on them, do they?
Why would outlets have buttons?
Every power outlet I've seen in a kitchen (or bathroom) has a GFI switch on it.
What is the safety benefit of a switch right next to the plug?
Being able to cut power without having to go to the mains?
I don't know; I'm not an electrician.
I have relatives in the UK. Apparently they often turn off the outlets when they are done with the appliance.
When they visit they are surprised I leave things like coffee machine, kettle, toaster etc plugged in and “live” all the time. (We don’t consider it live because the switch is off)
The outlets themselves are also much larger and it would be way easier for a child to stick something in there. In North America the outlet slots are much smaller so it is harder for a child to shock themselves
I should add that since the plugs in the UK are beefier they tend to be harder to unplug. (At least that’s what I have noticed when I am visiting). So in the UK if you need to de-energize something quickly they turn off the switch, in North America we pull the plug. Same results different paths.
The whole 120/240 thing is a pointless discussion. North America has 240 service to homes. We just split the phases and send 120 to the outlets except for major appliances.
Those in areas where water may get in them do. So any of them that would be in the kitchen would have one. All outlets are on a circuit breaker as well so if an overdraw on the circuit occurs the circuit shuts off.
Though those are automatic triggers, not the switches per outlet like is somewhat more common in the UK.
We have RCB/RCBOs at the consumer unit where the mains enters the property, and a fuse in the plug head as well. Commercial properties will have an extra breaker on each strip after each DB. That said, in a domestic install that RCB will isolate the whole ring attached to it (say what you will about the safety aspects of ring mains) rather than just the socket. They're very much automatic as well.
The RCB is for current imbalance (if part of it is leaking to ground through, say, a body) and the fuse is for overcurrent.
The switches are so you can a) isolate the appliance hanging off it for convenience and b) see at a glance if the outlet is live. Also, if you're plugging in something that is at the upper end of what a UK plug can provide (240V/13A/3.1kW), and it doesn't have its own isolation or flyback suppression it WILL arc, so it's useful to be able to prevent arcing damage.
There is SO much false information about America in this thread......
I don't know, but I had someone seemingly thinking buttons on power points were pointless, so I dunno ...
I have an electric kettle. It takes 3 minutes to boil it so the 120 volt outlet isn’t really that big of a deal. I takes longer to make a pot of coffee for me.
You can't admit to using an electric kettle while talking to red coats. Have some self respect.
At least I’m not admitting to drinking Snaka😀
For a single cup, you can just use the microwave. People who drink coffee tend to have coffee makers.
See I never use the microwave, I just run water through my Keurig, it's super quick. And if I think I'll want a lot of tea, I throw a couple bags in the coffee pot and run water through that instead. I'd always do the same to make water for cup noodles growing up, too.
Mind you, this only really works well if you keep your coffee pot/Keurig clean enough that the water doesn't have a hint of coffee flavor to it.
Is it really that much trouble to turn on the stove?
We usually don’t make those things by the cup. We’ll brew a pot of coffee using a dedicated coffee maker, or when making tea we will make an entire pitcher which could last all day or even several days. But I’m in the south where we only drink iced tea (and cold drinks in general aside from coffee), so that pitcher goes in the fridge.
It's thinner and enclosed so it boils faster, and has a spout so pouring is more safe.
Pan lips. Lid.
Not even remotely good enough for boiling water.
An electric kettle is fast and energy efficient.
Today I learned stove kettles exist. :O
You mean, the kind of kettle that has been around for centuries before the invention of the automatic electric kettle in 1955? You had no idea they exist?
I'm sorry, I live in the 21st Century. You might have heard of it.
I have had an electric kettle I bought from Walmart years ago. I see them available every time I go to Walmart and target. Denver, Charlotte, Houston. Ain’t like it’s niche. It’s only Americans who don’t observe the world around them that do not have or aren’t aware of electric kettles.
I've always been aware of them. I've just never had a compelling use for one.
I'm american and I love my electric kettle. I can choose the heating temperature, or use one of the presets, and it'll maintain the temperature there. My stove has basically three choices; cold, boiling, or some random point in between.
My shock when I accidentally bought a stove top kettle that doesn't whistle. I didn't know they made those! What's the point of boiling water in a teapot if it doesn't whistle when it's ready?!
I’d find that unnervingly dissatisfying. If im using one of those kettles I want it to whistle!
I use an electric kettle and I'm American.
Same, and I have no idea why anyone that drinks tea regularly and has 20 bucks to spare wouldn’t have one
Mine was $100, but it's programmable to specific temperatures and it was a gift. My other one broke from overuse...I drink too much tea. 🤣
Yeah some of those are great, there's the Breville "One Cup" which you can programme the amount of water, perfect for making up bottles of formula for babies, pro tip ,😅👍
Same, and I can't me in that tiny of a minority when the last one I bought was from Walmart. Yes our voltage is half for most outlets, but the current is high enough that the wattage isn't half. It just takes a little longer if you're heating a full kettle.
American with an electric kettle, here! Some of y’all in this thread are lunatics as well. Even if you don’t drink much tea (I drink tea all day bc I hate rawdogging water), you can use that mf-er for all kinds of stuff. Ramen, instant mash, hummingbird food, oatmeal, etc. They’re handy as hell!
Hey mate, just a piece of advice: might wanna be careful with all that tea unless you want to piss out gall stones👀
I drink only decaf, mate! Plus, I heard that was a myth and there’s no significant relationship between caffeine, tea, or coffee and gallstones. Someone even sent me an article years ago that said that heavy tea drinking caused gallstones in men but did the opposite in women. I’m a woman so I didn’t really sweat it at the time but I think that’s been proven false anyway.
In my case, it’s just flavored water anyway and I eat healthy otherwise so I think I’m good.
Also some of these people probably have 240 volt power so their boiling will be faster regardless of type of electrical device used
Canadian here. 120 volt. I’ve had an electric kettle my whole life. 99% of people’s houses I go to have a kettle. I can only think of one exception, and they don’t have any small appliances.
Am American, own electric kettle. It. Is. Amazing. 10/10 recommend! I use it for ramen too! Technology Connections turned me onto the idea.
I saw that episode. It reminded me of my parents kettle.
Well that was a fucking ride
Reminds me of the video of an American women trying to make tea, which is 6 minutes of several videos of complete incompetence.
The fact that Simon can generate so many tangents in his audience discussion is a credit to his skill as a presenter
Many many years ago I worked at an upmarket hotel in Vail, Colorado. I was asked to serve the high tea in the piano room every afternoon as my Australian accent was deemed close enough to pass as English. I'm a coffee drinker, hate tea. I had no idea how to make tea or what the difference even was between different teas but every afternoon there I was making recommendations and serving high tea and making stuff up on the fly. No-one ever noticed that I had no idea what I was doing.
I bought a small coffee maker specifically to heat up water for tea (I don’t like coffee). It comes in handy for oatmeal as well.
…. But why not buy an electric kettle?
The mini coffee maker was cheaper, and it’s Hello Kitty :D (which is admittedly more about aesthetics)
I also use mind to make the pho cup from Costco.
Super easy to cook oatmeal in the microwave. Only takes 90 seconds too.
My coffee maker is faster lol
I have several electric kettles. I must be weird.
My ex has an electric kettle. So did his former room mate. And the former professor I used to house-sit for. One of my writer friends has a fancy electric one that has settings for different types/strengths of tea. We're all from Ohio.
Electric kettles are definitely a thing in the US.
Apparently I'm not American? My wife and I had a legit argument of who's kettle we were keeping when we moved in together...
You keep both. It's always useful to have a spare kettle.
I am currently in Malaysia where the electricity is 240V and electric kettles get something done in finite time.
But I use my kettle for so many different things. Tea, coffee, mop bucket, filling pans, I even sometimes use it to swill the ground outside so I can scrub it!
Omfg that conversation was insanity
I must be an unusual American then. I love my electric kettle and my air fryer that is also a toaster, broiler and oven.
I'm in the US and have an electric kettle. Of course, I lived in Ireland for a few years, used them there, and thought they were great, so bought one on returning to the States.
My girlfriend from Appalachia found out about electric kettles and taught me to appreciate them. Now we have one, and I haven’t looked back.
In what physics defying universe does a kettle on the stove take less than a minute?
Alludes to My Cousin Vinny.
I microwave water but I also don’t really drink tea that often. Mainly because all my tea is 3 years expired and I couldn’t be bothered to buy more
I don't use an electric kettle; but i didn't grow up in the USA.
Most of the Americans i know just boil the water in a saucepan on the stove; others have those big boiling vats for their sweet tea.
I have a small mr coffee I use to heat water for my morning tea.
I was 16 years old when I found this out…I live in America
laughs in induction cooktop
As an American: laughs in zojirushi
I'm an American who uses an electric kettle for boiling water. XT
Technically you can make ice tea with tea bags in cold water and steep them like you do for cold brew coffee, obviously if you make hot tea an electric kettle is probably the best bet for it.
Tea<coffee
If it ain't iced with lemonade and vodka I ain't drinking that horrible British hot leaf water.
Calm down, Prince Zuko.
Very funny! Had to Google this.
You’re allowed to be wrong
is the only correct take.