this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
395 points (98.5% liked)

Asklemmy

43947 readers
740 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

A countertop water boiler. It turns out I go through just about 4L of tea a day and now I spend a lot less time boiling water. And when you refill it and it comes to temperature it plays Fur Elise

edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (6 children)

You mean a kettle? How did you not already have one?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

Very uncommon in the US at least.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They're a little different. Kettles are small (1-2 liters) will heat water until it's boiling and then shut off(or have the user disconnect the heat source)

Water boilers hold a larger amount of water (3-5 liters) at a consistent temperature with a button to dispense it.

I upgraded from a kettle to a zojirushi water boiler and I've never looked back. The thing is incredible. Absolutely worth the price.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Oh! Ok, you've sold me! :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It also keeps the water still hot because they're insulated.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's because the USA power standards are not suitable for kettle life. The 110 voltage on their power means it takes ages to come to the boil. The idea of putting a few cups of water into a kettle, pushing a button and having boiling water inside a minute does not exist.

That's why these tabletop things are useful: yes they take ages to initially boil, then they maintain that temperature. 110 volts is fine for that task.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are 240v outlets in the USA, but they're usually only used for things with heavy power draw (clothes dryers, EV chargers, electric hot water heaters, etc). Some areas have 208v instead of 240v though.

But yeah, boiling water is slow in the USA and a lot of people do it in the microwave (whereas I never saw anyone ever do that in Australia). We've got a Breville espresso machine that has instant hot water, which is useful for some of the use cases we'd use a kettle for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

We use our breville for hot water too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is kinda true and kinda not. Even on 110, an electric kettle is faster than a kettle on a gas stove. The real answer is that Americans just don't drink much tea. My family is unusual in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

This is kinda true and kinda not

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This video also proves my point. And he knows it. Nearly 5 minutes to boil a litre of water? That's hilarious!

I just replicated his experiment, with an identical bottle of water in my kettle, and was surprised that it took 2:47 to boil. I honestly would have thought it quicker than that.

This isn't about tea, either. In fact, I boil the kettle for coffee far more frequently than for tea. I would also boil a kettle to quickly get 2L of water for cooking pasta. But since I've just boiled it and it's 10:30pm, I make peppermint tea. Ahhh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Did you miss the part about how it's still the fastest way to boil water? Yes yes, it's slower than yours, we're all jealous. Even still, we would all have electric kettles if we needed to boil water all that often because it's faster than anything else we have. But:

  • People don't make pasta or rice every day, and even when you do you usually have plenty of time for it to come to a boil while you're chopping or stirring or whatever. People who do make rice that often typically use a rice cooker.
  • You can't really boil enough water in a kettle to cook potatoes or vegetables or anything else.
  • Coffee makers of most types typically boil their own water (yes there are pourovers and chemexes, but they aren't that common and people who use them do buy kettles).

Nobody would buy a kettle for just cooking even if we did have more power delivery, simply because you don't cook anything by boiling all that often. Case in point: my family drinks tea, and so we own a kettle, but tea is really the only time we boil water (in the kettle or otherwise) for anything on a daily basis.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

No, these devices hold water at the appropriate temperature for long periods of time using extremely good insulation. They provide hot water on-demand after reaching temperature and are used in a way that is somewhat different from kettles.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, I mean the things I linked to. They're like small countertop hot water tanks. I also do have multiple kettles.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In the US most do not own a kettle

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What? I’m American and everyone I know owns one.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And Zojirushi sells parts for their appliances! So instead of having to buy a brand new boiler, I just got a lid for my 15 year old boiler. I’ll always give business to companies that support their products like that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While that is true in this case, I do remember a post about one of their rice cookers that bricks itself when the CR battery dies, that requires a soldering iron to replace.

Found it

Edit: ok not a total brick but still…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

+rep for Zojirushi. My water boiler lid recently began chipping and pretty much disintigrating and on their website I saw they even have replacement parts for discontinued products. Very cool of them

Example: https://www.zojirushi.com/app/spare_parts/item/8-CDQ-P010

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

fur elise? fleur de lis is the ⚜

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, thank you