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Is it really so surprising that we don't (as a rule) have electric kettles? I think the reasons are pretty clear.

First, Americans are mostly coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. The coffeedrinkers are mostly using coffee machines that heat the water for you, so you don't need a kettle to do it. This is true from the low-end $30 drip machine to multi-thousand-dollar espresso machines.

Second, America is on 110, not 220. Kettles in the UK do boil CRAZY FAST, but the electric kettles I've used in the US aren't really any faster than using a stovetop kettle. American tea-drinkers often have those.

I’m Australian, it is mildly surprising. America is the land of convenience, and I’ve found an electric kettle even at 120v is still faster than boiling water on an electric stove, and much faster than boiling on a gas stove.

Electric kettles are starting to catch on in the US, I think. I just got my mom one to use with an aeropress, and now she uses it to boil water for things like spaghetti (adding the kettle water to the stove pot)

I do the same, a small amount of water starts heating on the gas stove but I completely fill the kettle. Way faster, and in areas with hydro, better for the environment.

Personally, I rarely boil water outside of cooking something, where my stove does the job perfectly well. I don't want or need to sacrifice counter space for a kettle.

> much faster than boiling on a gas stove.

There is no way an electric stove is quicker than a gas stove. I did a quick google search and a standard gas stove on high is 12,000-18,000 BTU, which is 3.5-5.4kw.

You are probably right. I have almost no experience boiling water on a gas stove (except for tiny camp stoves) because I use a kettle for that!

A lot of the heat is lost on a gas stove, though. Or is that the number after accounting for that?

It's quite fast if you've got 240v outlets in your kitchen. Otherwise it's a little slower, altho I do like being able to hit a button and wander away to do something else, which I never feel comfortable doing when something's on the flame.

Technology Connections on YouTube actually tested this and found electric to be slightly faster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y

It's a one-hour-plus video of someone literally boiling water, so there may be issues with the testing setup that I skipped over.

I would accept your reasoning, except for the personal experience showing that it's very wrong.

Don't know where the heat is being lost, but an electric kettle is significantly faster despite its lower energy.

> Don't know where the heat is being lost

On gas? Around the sides of the vessel, bound for the ceiling.

They're a waste of space if you don't make tea much, or one of the fancier and more-manual coffee-making methods.

Most people in the US don't make tea much, and just use an automatic drip machine or a keurig for coffee, so of course they don't have a kettle.

We have one, but it's because we drink more tea than most Americans, and since we have it for that, it's space-saving for me to also use it for pourover coffee (rather than having a drip machine).

It’s absurd that as a country you drink so little tea that you wouldn’t need electric kettles.

At least, I can totally see how it would seem as such to anyone from the UK (and most of the world).

Ted Lasso's reaction to hot tea is probably about the median US attitude toward it. We're just not used to it, and those of us who dive into that world usually have to kinda acquire the taste through some effort, before we start enjoying it. Very few of us take our first sip of typical black or green tea and go "oh yes, that's delicious, I'd love to drink that every day". Black coffee's not far off, but it's more culturally present so there's more pressure and opportunity to acquire that taste.

For my part, despite working at it for years, I still don't really like cheap tea (the stuff I could actually afford to drink every day, and that can be found without seeking out rare-in-the-US tea shops or ordering online), though higher-end tea is really good.

We drink a ton of iced tea, but that's easily made on the stovetop in a large pot, and can be bought in gallon-quantities at the grocery store. Having a kettle doesn't improve iced-tea-making very much.

[EDIT] Part of it may be that we drink on-the-go more than other countries. Just a guess, but might be true. Iced tea and coffee (hot or cold) are both much better for that than hot tea—one doesn't usually make a thermos-full of hot tea and drink it straight from the thermos, I'd expect (but maybe I'm wrong?) but that's normal for coffee.

> We drink a ton of iced tea

I forgot about iced tea, but I'm under the impression that how popular it is depends on the region of the US you're talking about. I don't see a lot of people drinking iced tea in my area, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone make it for themselves.

> I forgot about iced tea, but I'm under the impression that how popular it is depends on the region of the US you're talking about. I don't see a lot of people drinking iced tea in my area, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone make it for themselves.

Sweet tea is quite regional (the South).

Iced tea's popular in much of the country, but I think making it at home has dropped off just like making many other things at home has (how many people make their own stock or broth anymore?). These days, a gallon of store-brand iced tea is just about the cheapest drink most grocery stores stock—barely more expensive than making it at home, really, so why bother?

[EDIT] For foreigners wondering WTF the difference is between proper sweet tea and normal iced tea with sugar added: you add the sugar during or before steeping, while the water's nice and hot, and, usually, you add a lot of it. The difference in the finished product is kinda like the difference between making a mixed drink with simple syrup, versus using granulated sugar. You can cleanly dissolve a lot more sugar in hot water than cold (see again: simple syrup), and it tends to stay well-dissolved even when it cools. It's commonly believed that it also affects the flavor, not just texture and level-of-sweetness, but that may just be in our heads (I think it does, too, but can't explain why—it's not like we caramelize the sugar or anything like that)

Stupid question, is iced tea always with added sugar? That kind of would change the drink from moderately healthy (plain tea) to every doctor's nightmare.

No. Sweet tea (obviously) always has added sugar, but iced tea may be sweetened or unsweetened. Restaurants that serve it may offer sweetened or unsweetened, or may offer only unsweetened (sometimes styled "unsweet"), with sugar packets to sweeten it yourself if you so choose. It's rarely (but not never—typically only when bottled, though, this is basically never an option at a restaurant that offers cups of the stuff) offered with artificial sweetener included, but some people add their own to unsweetened iced tea. Restaurants and drive-throughs often have both sugar and one or more artificial sweeteners available, in packets.

Old-school restaurants, and especially diners, may have a mid-sized glass jar[0] of sugar with a metal lid and little metal flap on it (that flips up if you tip it, allowing some sugar out) left on the table, mainly used to sweeten coffee and iced tea. This is getting less common, in favor of little trays of sweetener packets, but you still see it sometimes. Used to be very common, 1990s and earlier.

True sweet tea (huge in the South, i.e. the part of the country that seceded during the Civil War, but much less ubiquitous outside it) is incredibly unhealthy. It contains more dissolved sugar than is easily achievable in room-temp-or-lower water/tea, by adding it during the boil, same as how you can super-concentrate sugar in water when making simple syrup (though it doesn't go that far) and it retains that sugar even when it's refrigerated. Sweetened iced tea has a much broader range of sugar levels, and may be relatively healthy, with only a little sugar, or very sugary.

Outside of the South, you'll often get sweetened iced tea if you ask for "sweet tea". It's fairly uncommon to see the real thing in Northern or Western restaurants. This sometimes leads to confusion, with non-Southerners going to the South and ordering sweet tea and getting something offensively sweet compared to what they're used to, or Southerners ordering it elsewhere and being disappointed with what they're served.

[0] Diner-syle sugar pourer: https://img1.etsystatic.com/040/0/6766475/il_570xN.635748831...

No. You specifically order "sweet" or "unsweet" tea in the South (or "half and half" if you want sweet but not cloying). Anywhere else, I would expect that sweet tea would be unavailable.

Note: this does not apply to bottled/canned teas, which are usually close to "half and half" in sweetness.

Most restaurants here serve soft drinks from a fountain rather than individual cans/bottles, so refills are free. If a restaurant uses individual containers for service, you will have to pay for refills. However, iced tea has free refills everywhere I've ever seen.

If you're in the South, Ordering "iced tea" with no qualifiers will probably get you sweet tea. Everywhere else, it'll probably be unsweetened. We do have a variety of less-sweet tea drinks, but those will be typically referred to by a brand name.

Out of all of my US friends, only two drink tea on a fairly regular basis. The rest either never drink it, or drink it rarely.

Odd, because my experience in the US is that about 10% of men I know drink tea, and about 90% of the women I know drink tea. It's strangely gender-based. Kind of like yogurt.

I bet there are large regional differences, too. I know that tea-drinking in the southern US, for instance, is much more common than in the northern.

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to look this up. The US is the 35th most tea-drinking nation! And overall, there are slightly more male tea-drinkers than female. At least according to this site:

https://teahow.com/is-tea-popular-in-america-what-tea-they-d...

Also, looking at the age breakdown of US tea drinker perhaps explains the difference in our experiences. 18.5% of people in my age group (50+) drink tea. 46.2% of those in the 25-49 year age group drink tea.

I bet those stats are tea tea, not counting herbal tea. And the vast majority of consumed tea leaves by weight, in the US, almost certainly go to iced tea, not hot tea as is common in other countries. (I guarantee "tea-drinking in the southern US" is more than 95% consumed-cold "sweet tea" or iced tea; even if you make that yourself—and it's very, very cheap to buy pre-made—it's about as easy to do it in a pot on the stove as to use a kettle)

> I bet those stats are tea tea, not counting herbal tea.

I think you're right. There is a table showing the popularity breakdown of the different types of tea, including herbal, but I think that's the global breakdown, not US.

It didn't provide a stat for it, but the page does remark that the majority of black tea consumed in the US goes to making iced tea.

Anecdotally, I'd noticed that tea vs. coffee seems to be generational. My wife and I drink tea at home while our parents prefer coffee (what coffee we have in the house is pretty much just for guests and some recipes that require it). Likewise, our siblings and their SOs seem to favor tea. My grandparents also tended to favor tea.

It sort of feels like a generational flip-flop thing to me between tea and coffee.

You'll see the inverse with (black or nearly-black) coffee, I bet.

Men drink (black or lightly sweetened/dairied) coffee or "energy drinks", women drink espresso-based mostly-milk drinks that don't taste like coffee, or tea (often green or herbal, and also often mixed with a bunch of milk or sugar, unless herbal). Not that there isn't plenty of overlap, but that's how the landscape looks to me, to call out the two big bubbles on this particular Venn diagram.

> espresso-based mostly-milk drinks

I call those "milkshakes".

Everyone in my (American) family drinks at least a cup, and often 3-5 cups of tea per day. This is considered a lot here. Tea drinking is so non-normalized that despite my entire family's love for tea, I was well into adulthood before I learned of electric kettles (from Tumblr) and introduced them to my family.

They're easier to find these days but still rare. If you ask for a hot tea at a restaurant, you'll often get a suspicious-looking teabag that has spent at least 6 months in the cupboard (iced is more available). I'm sure you can guess at the quality of most of the teas in an American grocery store; I usually wind up ordering from specialty tea shops instead.

You know, now that I think about it... it's probably not be true anymore, but I bet 3-4 decades ago having a dedicated "sun tea" pitcher rivaled or exceeded kettle ownership, in the US.

("sun tea" is made by sticking a big glass pitcher or jar outside on a warm sunny day, with water and teabags and maybe some citrus slices in it, and waiting for it to become something resembling tea, which you may drink at its natural somewhat-warm temperature, drink over ice, or refrigerate).

Ooh sun tea is so good - it doesnt just resemble it, it can make for a tasty drink. Extraction is a function of temperature and time after all, and lower temperature extractions dissolve less of the more bitter chemicals in plants.

It's the "don't drink tea much" that is surprising!

They might not drink tea much for having dumped all their kettles into the Boston Harbor back in 1773 or something.

What's funny is the people who were mad about it were tea importers, not tea drinkers. British policy on tea in the US [EDIT, er, the American colonies, that is] lowered prices, a lot, which ruined the profit margins of importers/smugglers.

We drink tons and tons of iced tea, but that's about as easy to make in a large pot on the stove as it is to make with a kettle, and most folks already have a large pot. Plus you can buy large containers of it already made at the grocery store.

The difference is that Americans don't drink very many boiled-water drinks and so don't really need them. And the ones they do are easily handled and better handled by the specialized <100$ gadget that is a coffee machine.

I don’t drink much tea at home but I still use it all the time for pasta, eggs, instant noodles etc. literally any cooking that needs boiled water.

I have a kettle and it has never occurred to me to use it for cooking food.

Just to be clear, don’t put food in the kettle! It’s just a lot faster to get water boiling than starting from cold on the stove.

Especially if you have an induction stove, where the stove itself is hot instantly so you can pretty much just pour the water from the kettle into the pot and start cooking (unlike a resistive stove, where the water often cools quite a bit before the stove catches up so you end up waiting a couple of minutes after boiling the water in the kettle for it to be boiling on the stove again - still faster than going from room temp on the stove though).

Very much not the case for me, with a (fairly good) US electric kettle and a natural gas range. They're comparable, speed-wise, for smaller quantities, and if I need to boil more than a liter or so, the stovetop is a lot faster.

Elsewhere in the thread voltage difference are brought up—that's probably what does it, typical US wall service is far lower-voltage than in Europe. That, and I've definitely had electric ranges in the US that were incredibly slow to boil water, so that might be a factor. Gas, though? At least as fast, depending on the quantity. (I hear induction electric is even faster, but have only used those a very little bit at a couple AirBnBs, so don't really know, first-hand)

For me, in Europe, my electric kettle boils water maybe somewhere around 3-5 times faster than my gas stovetop. I usually use it to pre-boil the water when cooking as that saves so much time.

Yet here I am, in America, with a cheap water dispenser that has hot and cold taps.

I don't know how many hot water dispensers produce water hot enough for a satisfying cup of tea or coffee.

Fortunately for me, I dislike virtually all tea equally so my hot dispenser gets used for noodles and rice.

Over the past decade, decade-and-a-half, it seems to have become quite common in at least the Netherlands to install taps that provide cold, hot and boiling water in new kitchens. These days, the higher end taps also do chilled and carbonated water.

The origin story for the boiling water tap is powdered instant soup, which isn't quite instant without instant boiling water... :)

> Second, America is on 110

Kind of: 240V is fed into homes (along with a neutral), and gets split in half.

Most receptacles are 120V for most appliances, because it gets the job done. There aren't many appliances that need more than that. The two main ones that do have 220V plugs are clothes dryers and kitchen ranges (hobs/ovens).

If you want a kettle that boils faster change your NEMA 5 socket (and breaker) that does 120V (at 15A or 20A) for a NEMA 6, and get an UK/EU kettle and change the plug.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#Nomenclature

(Not sure how up to code any of the above would be.)

For what it’s worth, I make drip coffee with a 120V kettle, and it boils plenty fast for my needs. A several hundred to thousand dollar electrical project seems overkill to save what I assume would be a few seconds to a minute per cup of coffee.

My regarded-as-moderately-high-end US electric kettle isn't really any faster to boil water than my stovetop is—but, it can hold a temperature, and has several settable stop-and-hold-points at sub-boiling temps, which is great for various teas and coffees.

What's not relatable to me is European (I assume?) reports of boiling water in an electric kettle, then transferring to the stovetop. My kettle's not meaningfully faster than the stovetop, and is a lot slower for quantities past a liter or so—it's only worth having for the other features. I assume that's the voltage difference making itself known.

Yes: I generally only fill up a kettle in the 500-750 mL range if I'm only making one cup, and it generally boils fast enough for my tea.

Peak HN right here. Absolute PEAK.

How would this boil water faster if it’s still the same wattage?

> How would this boil water faster if it’s still the same wattage?

It wouldn't be the same wattage: it would be double the wattage.

The wiring can handle 15 or 20A, and at 120V that's a practical limit of 1800W. You keep the amperage limit (no cabling replacement needed), but 240V would allow 3600W.

I tried toe-socks over a decade ago when I had a persistent toe fungi I couldn't shake with treatments, etc. The toe-socks were a win. I have worn toe-socks since.

Sadly, they very much are left/right specific (unless you topologist consider that you can turn one of them inside out to flip its handedness, but then the stitching seams are now on the outside!).

They are a little on the thin side and though I bought like 10 pair, they slowly but steadily wear through and need to be tossed. I wish I could say the lefts wear as often as the rights but I appear to walk in an asymmetric way. (Or, you know, Coriolis Effect.)

Further, finding replacements that match has been difficult (I would like them all to match so that left/right is the only factor in pairing them). Though I have bought the same brand, trying to get the matching length has been surprisingly hard. I'm not sure why.

When I find them again though, I'll order at least 20 pair this time.

And if you're wearing tabis, you don't even have a choice

> best socks

You want to check out backpacking gear review sites like Outdoor Gear Lab, Section Hiker, or for the most authoritative data, Backpacking Light ($).

In the mean time, try searching for Darn Tough, Silverlight Socks or Smartwool for boot socks.

The longstanding English manufacturer Bridgedale must have been taken over by MBAs recently because it is being marketed heavily. Their socks may be fine; I don't know.

Then there is Injinji, and other two-layer (inner and outer) and toe-separated sock systems more generally. I like Injinji's sport sock (once I got over the look of my feet in socks with five separate toes). Injinji has a range of socks made from different textiles.

All of these use wool/synthetic blends, with the synthetic usually some form of nylon. Silverlight's nylon is coated with silver for antimicrobial properties (reduced stink). I have just placed an order for a five-pack. (I also spend up to 10.5 hours a day on my feet in boots.)

For non-wool, thinner socks I use Drymax, which are aimed at the running/athletics crowd. I've found them very durable (used them quite a bit for tramping (NZ-ish for bushwalking/hiking) and very easy-care. They are not left-right differentiated though.

I’ve found that left/right socks are more common for activities like running, where they’re knit to support specific parts of your feet.

I'm American and I'm also not understanding the comments about pairing identical socks that were purchased at the same time. I just tend to buy them 10 pairs or so at a time, match them randomly, and wear them until individual socks get lost or worn out.

This is what I do as well. All of my everyday socks are identical, so I don't have to pair them up at all after laundry day. I just keep them loose in a drawer and pull two arbitrary ones out when I put my socks on.

more americans have kettles now because they're cheap and easy to buy on amazon. and home-made real coffee is more popular. also there are more 2nd gen americans these days with parents from asia. i think the venn diagram of rice cooker owners and kettle owners is pretty large.

i think it's the brick and mortar retailers that never caught onto the idea.

I would be pretty surprised to walk into a Target or a Bed, Bath, and Beyond and not find multiple electric kettle options.

>Bed, Bath, and Beyond

RIP strangely named store that carried emergency mothers day gifts for all these years.

The vast majority of socks in the US are not tailored for left or right feet, but there are some specialty types that are.

>Americans don't have kettles

As a weird American I have a 1970's electric water boiler I still use that is incredibly fast at boiling water. Passed down to me from my grandparents because I enjoy tea and hate coffee. I really hope it never dies because it works way better than the plastic modern one I had in college.

But on the topic of socks: Hitting my 30's pushed me to finally invest in nice longer lasting socks. Spending $120 over the last few years on bundles of various wool socks until I found ones I like was completely worth it. Although learning to properly care for wool socks was a process. They probably aren't for everyone, but for people that like thick longer songs I love my People Socks. [https://www.peoplesocks.com/]

> There's a few comments - seemingly from our American friends - that seem to suggest that left / right socks are a thing. I'm hoping I'm parsing those comments poorly, but ever since the revelation that Americans don't have kettles, I'm prepared for the worst.

There can be. Typically fancy athletic socks with more fitted toe areas than normal.

Sir,

I’ll leave the kettles alone because that ground has been well trod (hopefully, using the best socks).

However I am concerned that you did all this sock research and somehow did not end up with toe-socks, which of course have left and right socks (unless you are the kind of maniac who would wear a sock inside out, which I gather from your studies that you are not).

I have left and right socks in Austria. If I accidentally end up with two left ones or two right ones (I can only tell by the L and R emblems) and notice it after having left the house it completely ruins my day. As in, I will generally get up and leave wherever I am, go home and wait for the feeling to reset by going to sleep in the evening.

> embarked on a project to try to find the best ... socks

I've tried all kinds of socks.

long journey got me: Darn Tough socks style 1403

https://amazon.com/dp/B000XG34G8

Cushioned, no blisters, no bunching. You get warm, dry feet on hot and cold days. They last a long time.

Huh, sounds like people are yanking your chain? I have literally never heard of left and right socks and kettles - both electric and flat bottomed urns of metal - are commonplace.

Might be one of those regional thing.

Left-right differentiated socks are also commonplace, in athletic recreations like hiking and trailrunning.

Excellent Technology Connections video on kettles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c

That’s mainly because many Americans have a coffee maker instead of brewing tea. But electric kettles are increasingly common. I have one, as well as one that I can put on the stove.

Kettles are not just for brewing tea. Whenever I need to boil large (quart or above) amounts of water (e.g. for pasta) I boil maybe 80 % in the electric kettle and the rest in the pot. Goes much faster.

I also used to use them to make noodles in college.

At least in the US, I think that's only true for electrical resistance cooktops/hobs. For both natural-gas and inductive cooktops and 110V kettles, I find that the water boils much faster in the pot.

A combination is still faster than either in isolation!

Yes, but you would want the 80% in the thing that heats up faster, no?

Toe/tabi socks are amazing and not interchangeable left/right

I buy all my socks from Muji.