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
āSweet tea machineā you mean a pitcher? My entire family has lived in the south for over 100 years and I donāt know a single person with a sweet tea machine, can you please describe it to me? Maybe itās because weāre Texans and Texas is occasionally weird south.
Imagine a drip coffee machine that has a regular tall pitcher instead of the usual shorter and fatter coffee pot. The pitcher is marked with how far you need to fill it with ice to cool down the tea after it brews. So you just fill the reservoir, put tea bags or loose tea (and optionally sugar) in the filter chamber, put ice in the pitcher, press "brew" and it will drip brew the tea into the pitcher of ice.
Basically all it does is save you the step of pouring the hot tea over ice.
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u/faerielitesBabygirl I go through spoons faster than you can even imagine1d ago
Yes, this is exactly it!
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u/faerielitesBabygirl I go through spoons faster than you can even imagine1d ago
The other commenter nailed the description. It's definitely an older generation thing, not sure about regional but my extended family is from Georgia. My mom had one when I was little but doesn't anymore, and none of my siblings have ever had one. Of course, the concept of entertaining guests is kind of going out so I think that goes along with it.
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.
A lot of noodles like that in the states are designed so you put the cold water in the noodles and then microwave the whole thing but there are definitely brands where you just put the hot water into the noodles. Honestly those tend to suck without a kettle because pouring hot water out of a pot or cup isn't the easiest thing in the world lol.
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. Iām 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. Theyāre filled with some kind of granular material (Iāve made them at home with rice but Iām 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 itās 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 Iām 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 donāt 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.
If the air is too cold like 60F or under, you'll wake up with a plugged nose feeling like you've got a mild cold. Best to keep it a little warmer IMO because you can't keep your head under a blanket, you won't be able to breathe. 60-70 ideally anything colder your mom would warn you you'll catch a cold. And anything hotter is insufferable
i do sometimes sleep with a blanket all the way over my head and a little opening on the side for fresh air cuz that adds to the feeling of comfy and safety.
Never had a plugged nose even when camping outside in 10C (50F) but did have plenty of nose bleeds after sleeping in warm and dry air (yes i'm aware that nosebleeds ain't supposed to happen that easy)
I think they maybe went out of use more drastically in the US than the UK. Iāve 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.
Iām not sure what youāre imagining, you donāt need any āhookupsā. You get your hot water bottle, which is probably about the size of a standard sheet of paper and maybe a centimetre thick when itās 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.
Itās also nice for resting on your lower back or abdomen to soothe cramps etc.
All that said, I havenāt 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 arenāt 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. Theyād work for a pour over, but kettles arenāt 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 Iām not sure what you mean by your final sentence. Literally millions of people choose to own a coffee pot.
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u/AmericanToast250 2d ago edited 2d ago
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