Buying a tea kettle

[GoTea]

Hey guys,

I have decided the time has come to buy a tea kettle for my room. I am living at home and till now I have been taking flasks of hot water upstairs to study. This has been ok for greens and some oolong but even with those the water does cool after a while. I've gotten hold of some nice aged sheng and realy need to have hot water all the time.

I really want to get a nice looking kettle that can adjust for different teas, and is stable and safe. This is because of cats

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kamjove-Water-Int ... 316wt_1139

I have found this and it seems like a nice shaped kettle with a nice base and all the features I want. Only thing is this water filling system. Is this just a gimmick or is it useful. As I haven't got a water source in my room I'll probably need to take up big bottles of tap water to fill kettle with.

thanks Michael

[Poohblah]

The spout could be super useful if you have a nearby water source. The misspelling of "green tea" kinda puts me off though.

[TomVerlain]

skip the water filling bit. This one looks nice:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kamjove-Induction ... 35a544db07

Since you can use 220v, there are a lot more chinese kettles you can use. In the states, we can't use the native ones.

You can get a glass kettle to go with your induction cooktop too.

[fracol]

Or you could try adagio's own electric kettle. It works like a charm everytime. Best on the market IMO

[GoTea]

Well I was thinking the cats might knock the kettle off the induction plate. I think I would need one with a click in bottom.

[Poohblah]

Well I was thinking the cats might knock the kettle off the induction plate. I think I would need one with a click in bottom.

I think the cats would figure out the kettle is hot pretty quick

[edkrueger]

I would highly advise against kettles that have a temperature setting with the exception of Zojirushi. Pino's, Adagio's and Capresso's multi tempeture models just stop the boiling early, while the Zoji actually boils, senses temperature and cools or heats to maintain that temperature. I don't know about the one you posted, but I'd guess it is the first type.

Honestly, however, I would avoid the multi temp all together and just use a glass kettle. With glass you can see how hot the water is if you just want to just heat the water to the desired level. If you want to boil it first and let it coll, then get a water cooler.

[GoTea]

Its says that it boils the water then cools. Only controls minimum temperature. I'm not a big fan of glass teaware. It breaks

[fracol]

Well if you really like boiling your water first I suppose you could just use the temperature guage set to boiling then moniter the falling temp with a thermometer. It's basically the same. I just like the option of not having to boil the water. Some sources say you should boil first others say you shouldn't honestly I havn't expiramented enought with it, but at least I always have the option.

[debunix]

I would highly advise against kettles that have a temperature setting with the exception of Zojirushi. Pino's, Adagio's and Capresso's multi tempeture models just stop the boiling early....

I love my Pino. If I set it to 145, the water won't come to a boil, but I don't need it to boil to make gyokuro or sencha that pleases me.

Honestly, however, I would avoid the multi temp all together and just use a glass kettle.

I broke two pretty glass kettles and gave up on them after that. Pretty, and practical if you're really well coordinated, but not so good for clumsier folk like me.

The pino firmly clicks onto the stand, and stands its ground when the cat climbs around it to the windowsill above.

[zeto]

I didn't want to start another thread for this so I'm going to add my question to this thread:

I'm also looking for a new kettle, and well, like others I have found that there are no solid metal or glass or glass/metal hybrids out there without plastic... so that brings us back to the Utilitea.

I'm curious if any of you know the design cycle of the Utilitea, and what kind of timetable might be expected for a new version to come out. I've read some discussion on proposed changes and reason why not to do specific things due to price change requirements, however all products should and do go through design cycles where they can be bettered without an increase in cost. So I'm curious when the last time the Utilitea was updated.

[MarshalN]

A friend of mine did some research and found this to have zero plastic, none that touches water anyway

http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-40 ... B000ES7I8A

[zeto]

wow no kidding. At $10-20 less than the Utilitea I probably can't pass it up then... unless someone has a reason not to.

I couldn't fathom why nobody had designed a single sheet inner boiler, and why they think it's a good idea to install a plastic view bay right behind handles... or even worse as the case is with the Capresso a stinky rubberized gasket on the bottom by the heating element.

I have to imagine that much of it is based on companies trying to put in all the features everyone wants for as cheap as possible to hit the largest audience as possible to make the biggest profits as possible... but that doesn't really result in the best engineering.

I could rant on and on about engineering, but thanks a bunch... if anyone else has any info please let us all know.

[MarshalN]

Something like that. I use a Braun one that has that plastic water level viewer, which is rather useless, but at least it has no smell/taste. The gasket stuff are the worst.

[zeto]

I actually had the opportunity to go smell one for myself and wow do they stink. Regardless of whether or not it's actually 'bad' for you, that IS getting dissolved in the water, and if it's not necessary to make a good boiler, then why have it...