Does a Zojirushi hot water pot qualify as an electronic kettle?

I would expect that a US household not having a kettle, either stovetop or electric, would be exceedingly rare, like 1% or something.

Every adult in Europe has an electric kettle. You get one as a gift at some point once you move out, there's no avoiding.

Was kind of surprised to hear in a video once that electric kettles in the US are rare. Never really understood why, but it might have to do something with the lower power of 110v vs. 230v.

This guy went off the deep end explaining why:

Ypuh wrote:Every adult in Europe has an electric kettle. You kind of get one as a gift at some point once you move out, there's no avoiding.

Was kind of surprised to hear in a video once that electric kettles in the US are rare. Never really understood why, but it might have to do something with the lower power of 110v vs. 230v.

This guy went off the deep end explaining why:
video

Kettles in general are extremely common, I don't think I know anyone without one. The split for stovetop and electric probably varies depending on where you live, or what you're used to, etc. Amongst those I know electric kettles are extremely common though so...

But yeah, toasters and kettles are a lot slower on 110V vs 220V.

Thanks for your replies, that's been really helpful for understanding the situation better. The rise of the electric kettle is an interesting trend, Jeff, thanks. It's interesting to see the different evolution between North America and Britain: in the U.S. the coffee making methods like coffee pot, vacuum syphon, percolator, autodrip, etc didn't require a separate hot water source, whereas in Britain the tea-drinking habit meant every home already had a kettle which maybe then left it more susceptible to the curse of Instant in the post-War austerity years. Perhaps instant was then less convenient in the U.S. as fewer homes had kettles? Just speculating though.

Grant, I wondered what boiler water is like for tea -- presumably there isn't much if any oxygen left once it's been super-heated and vented a few times. It's still pretty common in coffee shops here to fill a pot from the water wand. Maybe as energy prices continue to rise there'll be more of a move towards the Zojirushi insulated heaters, JohnB?

Ypuh that's an interesting video, thanks, it really does show how much more efficient electric is at point of use. I remember on alt.coffee, posters installed a 220-volt outlet in the kitchen especially to run a 3 kW kettle

Cheers

Maybe as energy prices continue to rise there'll be more of a move towards the Zojirushi insulated heaters, JohnB?

I had to Goggle to see what the electric kettles looked like. Never owned one or thought about owning one. I had assumed most folks used water pots like the Zojirushi these days. Prior to the water pots we had a regular stove top kettle. I do own a Hario Buono kettle for my woodneck brewers.

And I must be an outlier in the US as back in the 60's I grew up drinking black tea with dinner, don't have any memories of any other beverage with dinner. Loose tea in a pot, my recollection is steep, stir so it fell to the bottom and pour gently. the water came from a Revere Ware whistle spout kettle heated on the O'keefe & Merritt gas stove.

Phil_P wrote:Hi H-B, may I ask a quick question, please?

Could anyone advise roughly what proportion of U.S. and/or Canadian homes own a (tea) kettle, either electric or stovetop?

I undestand they aren't so much of thing in North America as they are in, say, Europe?


Thanks for any info
Phil

I'm Canadian and probably when I was a child (in the 80s) it was stove top but pretty much most people I know have an electric today. a reason why it may be different in the EU than it is in Canada/US is that we have 120v and head to head would be slower than a 240v for boiling water in an electric kettle. But I would wager most electric kettles are sill faster than stovetop even with 120v. When I got into coffee (10 years ago) I got a stovetop Hario, now I have an electric pid (and I wouldn't turn back). I currently live and work in Indonesia right now and sometimes we have power outages, so I still use the classic Hario kettle when the powers out with a gas stove.