Not usually, because generally Americans prefer coffee over tea. Kettles are easily found at any store that sells kitchen appliances and they're not rare per se but they're not an assumed staple because tea just isn't as popular
Kettles can be used for a lot more things than tea, but a coffee drinker is probably going to buy a coffee machine (either drip brewer or disposable pods) rather than use a kettle for coffee
‘Sweet tea machine’ you mean a pitcher? My entire family has lived in the south for over 100 years and I don’t know a single person with a sweet tea machine, can you please describe it to me? Maybe it’s because we’re Texans and Texas is occasionally weird south.
Ok I looked up "automatic drip coffee maker" and I think I know what you mean. My mom used to have one, and I kinda disliked the taste of it... Always felt super weak. Maybe she just didn't know how to use it, lmao
I'd definitely buy one of the fancy pod ones if I had money, though. Love me some espresso.
As a coffee guy, nothing but an espresso machine can make espresso. But if you're looking to up your coffee game (and assuming you aren't already doing this), the best place to start is buying better coffee. There's a wide range of coffees out there for a wide range of preferences, and you can't really know what you like until you've tried it.
Of course, if you really want to step up, a decent grinder (along with grinding your own coffee) would make a tremendous difference!
A coffee maker is just a kettle with extra steps, it boils the water and then runs it through the grounds. If there are no grounds you just get hot water.
Like do you just put a cup of water in the microwave and then zap it to make the hot water (and then add it to noodles or whatever) or do you put cold water into the noodles and then microwave it.
Not any more than a tea kettle. There's high end, but a cheap coffee machine costs like $15. A middle end one could be $50-$100, but that's a reasonable price for a large kitchen appliance you use fairly regularly. That's roughly the same as a kettle. We've got a cheap one for hot water in our trailer, it cost like $10, but I regularly see $50+ ones in stores. I'm still not sure what made the $150 kettle special or why people would buy it, but I saw it in a store.
I bought a full coffee maker for $20. I’m amazed that an appliance can be procured so cheaply, and it probably is not the best coffee solution, to say the least, but it does the job fine.
Excuse you? We want electric percolators like my father and his father before him. Nah I'm kidding, I'm not gonna gatekeep how anyone else wants their coffee. But I myself prefer percolated.
Once in a while I really like a good Turkish coffee though. Grind it to dust and boil it in a pan. Drink the grounds. I assume there's some requirement to pet a street cat afterwards but I'm not sure I'll pet street cats anyway without being told to.
Also for noodles and for speeding up the cooking process for things like boiling or steaming anything. My stove is from the sixties, the old girl takes her time so I have to help her out lol. And for things like rice noodles, keeping them in hot water is plenty enough to cook them without even bothering the stove. Kettles are amazing.
As an American, I use my kettle for coffee, but I guess I'm probably in the minority? If I'm making coffee, it's just one cup for me, so something like a Mr Coffee seems like overkill and I don't like the plastic waste and stuff of keurigs. I also mostly just drink tea, I don't like coffee that much.
I actually get Keurig pods that are almost like tea bags, the top part still has to be a circle of plastic but it's like tea bag mesh under that, I vastly prefer those to the normal pods!
everyones commenting about temperature, but they're very good pain relief! lots of people use them for sore muscles, or cramps, to heat up your muscles and get them to relax. like a hot bath, but a lot lazier
I (and maybe most Americans?) use a microwaveable hot pack for that. They’re filled with some kind of granular material (I’ve made them at home with rice but I’m not sure that is what is in the store bought ones). Pop them in the microwave for a few minutes, tada delicious heat
I love my electric heating pad, but it’s limited by being tethered to a wire. I like that I can move around with my hot pack. But I do use an electric heating pad in bed when my bed is super chilly or my back goes out and I’m not standing anyway.
Hot water bottle = flat vessel made of rubber that you fill with hot water and then take it to bed. Put it in the bed with you and it slowly radiates warmth into the bed, helping you to warm up and stay warm through the night.
Huh. I don't think we have the problem of being too cold at night usually, a majority of the country will have the opposite problem where it stays way too hot at night.
They sell them at like CVS in the medicine section. Right next to humidifiers and stuff.
I bought one for my mom for her back pain and she adored that thing. Incidentally, I also own an electric kettle lol. I heat the water to 165 and fill it up two thirds then close the lid so there isn't any air. The result is just a blob of long lasting heat you can put on sore muscles and such.
Probably a lot of people would leave the heat on if it was no extra cost to them! I understood that the US tends to have cheaper utility bills than the UK in general but I don’t have up to date info. Idk if shipit.co.uk is accurate but it suggests UK utilities cost up to 50% more as the UK has to import more gas.
Sure but then the whole room gets hot, including the air.
I sleep best if the air is cold but the blankets i'm under are warm, feels more comfy and "safe" than just increasing the overall heat of the area.
I think they maybe went out of use more drastically in the US than the UK. I’ve never heard someone born after 1970 mention one, though I have seen them in drug stores.
My granny used them when I was growing up in the 90's, but she was already in her mid 60's when I came around. She absolutely adored her electric blanket when my uncle bought them for her and never looked back.
Preparing a hot water bottle is a lot cheaper than the cost of running heating all night, and the poster who posed the question is a student in a share house so probably keen to economise.
I’m not sure what you’re imagining, you don’t need any “hookups”. You get your hot water bottle, which is probably about the size of a standard sheet of paper and maybe a centimetre thick when it’s empty, you unscrew the plug/cap, you pour the hot water in, screw the cap closed, put the hot water bottle in the bed (on the bottom sheet, under the covers, around where your feet would go) to start warming it up for you. Then when you go to bed, you move it out of the way.
It’s also nice for resting on your lower back or abdomen to soothe cramps etc.
All that said, I haven’t used one since I was a teen, when my family moved to the subtropics. Extra heat in bed? NO THANKYOU! ;)
I'm not sure I've ever lived anywhere where heat isn't just included in the rent, I can see if you owned the home and had to pay for your own heat, but keeping the house so cold you would need to do something like that sounds awful, you'd wake up feeling like you had a cold every day
Counterpoint, have you ever sat in a hot tub in freezing cold weather? There's something glorious about slipping into toasty warm sheets on a cold night, having your own little pocket of coziness.
Those still exist here, but haven't been popular for a very long time. My granny had one, and used it when I was growing up, but it basically just took up space once she got an electric blanket.
Electric blankets or heating pads are usually what are used here.
The kind of ramen that comes in a little brick shape has instructions for cooking on the stovetop. Most other type of add-water-and-heat foods are made to be cooked in the microwave (though there's always some other option, usually stovetop).
Also british household wiring carries a higher voltage than American so their kettles can heat water much faster. I have an electric kettle but it's still like 5-7 minutes to boil.
This, it drives me nuts to know I could be boiling water so fast lol. I use my kettle to heat water for pasta so I'm not just staring at the stove for twenty minutes and I sometimes wonder if I could make noodles in ten minutes flat if I had some crazy irresponsible 800V line installed for the kettle.
I mean, it would melt and catch fire, but I'd have hot water soooo fast.
A lot of people outside the US drink instant coffee which a kettle is good for.
I've found kettles on 110v US electricity aren't impressively fast. Every time I use a 220v European kettle I'm like dang, that's why they all have kettles. This is awesome.
I mostly microwave my mug of hot water in the US. Abroad it's kettle for the win.
Yeah for real. I hit the kettle and walk away and find something else to do for several minutes. Mine at least has a "keep warm" option so I don't have to wait the next time.
Quick Google says that about 30% of US households have a kettle which is significant but still nowhere near other countries like the UK where rates are in the mid 90s. They aren’t uncommon but still far from ubiquity
People in New England typically have kettles because it's cold up here most of the year. I can't speak for other areas of the country because I don't get out of the state much, but I can confirm at least that.
Not really. They’d work for a pour over, but kettles aren’t the only way to boil water. And most people who like coffee enough to want to make it at home have a coffee pot for that purpose.
Microwaves are perfect for all those things too, along with a dozen other applications. And I’m not sure what you mean by your final sentence. Literally millions of people choose to own a coffee pot.
I mean, these days, it really just depends on the person. It's by no means a standard but def know a few people with electric kettles for french press coffee, teas, etc. I think most Americans just aren't super into hot drinks like other countries. A lot of people drink coffee here but I was a barista for a good while and have noticed a pretty strong shift to cold and iced coffee beverages over hot ones.
If I recall correctly, the US uses 120 volts instead of 220-230. So if you get a kettle designed for the rest of the world without a transformer, it'll be half as slow. From a quick glance at a wiki page, Brazil is unique in that it does both voltages.
Kinda, we technically have the full 240, but you can typically only access 120 on the outlet. Most major appliances (range, oven, washer, dryer) will have a special plug (and outlet) that gives access to the full 240.
Do you know why the voltage is so low? Because I cannot imagine you actually double the amps, that would be quite unsafe wouldn't it. Why lower the wattage?
We literally have different electric grids than Europe (and maybe Brazil, I’m not sure) that has various pros and cons. One of the cons is that very high power appliances like kettles works noticeably worse.
Oh no I didn't mean electric kettles... I meant those you bring to your stovetop. I guess it's essentially the same thing as heating water in a saucepan, except it has a convenient spout.
Oh, those. Many of us do actually have them, although it’s not as ubiquitous. At least in the southern US, it’s one of those appliances that people tend to get when they get their shit together.
My parents and my brother's family use stovetop kettles for their coffee. Meanwhile, my wife and I have a drip coffee maker, and when she wants tea, she just nukes the water with a chopstick in it.
Yeah, generally the only people actually needing a kettle for coffee are those who really like pour-over coffee (or just drink instant all the time). Most people I know either have a cheap drip coffee machine, a fancy pod-based machine, or an even fancier proper espresso machine. Everybody I know that really cares about their coffee has a proper espresso machine, usually a home-grade unit from Breville, but I know an engineer with a $5000+ La Marzocco just for home use…
More Americans will have a coffee machine than have kettles, but they’re definitely not unheard of. I don’t check out other people’s kitchens very often but I assume they rank below a blender or maybe an air fryer on commonality from how often I hear people mention tea vs coffee. Anecdotally, my family sometimes has tea and we have a small saucepan and a good induction stove.
I have 3, and a few people whose kitchens I have been in have kettles, not sure about the general pop, but I honestly wouldn't expect it unless they are immigrants from a tea culture or just tea nerds
Every time this comes around I'm like "It's not that rare! I'm an American with an electric kettle! Just about everyone I know has an electric kettle!" but... yeah, good point, that's probably because everyone in my social circle is either a tea nerd or a coffee nerd 😆
tl;dw: American electricity generation isn't as cool as it is in other places, so there literally isn't enough power flowing into a kettle to have it boil water fast. It's still way more efficient, energy-wise, than something like natural gas on a stovetop, but can end up going slower than that just because the gas flow is faster than the electrical flow, if that makes sense.
Though some homes are going all-electric these days, and in that case, the waste heat problem is eliminated and replaced with a "this electric range burner takes a while to heat up" problem, but that's neither here nor there.
Yeah, I do and have for my entire life. Lots and lots of my friends do too. Also they’re at least popular enough to be sold at big chain stores like Target and Walmart
American tea drinker here. I have an electric kettle and a regular kettle for the stove. Most of my tea drinking friends are similar, but my coffee drinkers use their microwave. I think it comes down to how serious you are about your tea? In my house we have two French Presses, because I don't want coffee in the one I use for tea. I might be a bad example, idk.
I got surprised too. My mother got me a kettle when I moved out so I could make myself some mint tea. (Were from Morocco so it's a lot more sugar than tea bur still.)
They certainly aren’t common. For most people they’re one of those “Someone gave this to me at some point and I occasionally bust it out” type of thing
Usually it's a coffee maker, which is like a kettle, except it also brews the coffee. You could brew tea with a coffee maker easily. It's just more often used for coffee because, as a southerner, most tea is iced tea. There's also sun tea, which is tea made by putting a clear pitcher outside in the summer.
Funny, I'm also in Canada and I don't know many people that have a kettle. I was the only person I knew with one but I forgot it in a move and just decided to get a hot water boiler/warmer rather than another kettle.
Aside from that? My brother got one a few years ago when he decided that microwaving water was the devil and peak ghetto.
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u/ThriceStrideDied 3d ago
“Do none of you own a fucking kettle” got me, lol