Seriousely how many of you do that? Sincearly a european
My wife is a purist from the south of England with several tea brewing options. If I boiled water in the microwave I’d be at real risk of divorce
She is a keeper
For sure. I am punching and I know it
What are you punching??
A kettle of water repeatedly to heat it up
I used to do house calls a decade ago for IT work. Often customers offered me beverages.
Had a European who worked at the UN for decades make me tea. Blew my socks off. I’ve never enjoyed tea, but it seems like we just don’t know how to make it!
… The next month I was offered tea by a American. I wasn’t expecting it being made by a pro, but let him try.
He put “hot” tap water into a cup and tossed a teabag in.
I fake drank it.Sooo … that’d be bad, then?
As a guy who recently got into tea, any recommendations? I got a box of Yorkshire gold, it’s pretty good, but almost tastes a little… chalky? Malty I suppose is the word. It’s good, I’m not complaining, but would be interested to hear recs from someone who knows what’s what
I always recommend this site: https://theteahouseltd.com/
We’ve visited them in person and their tea was so fantastic that even non-tea people loved it. They ship worldwide. I tend to order in bulk these years.
Only one tea has ever come close, and it was a small Asian restaurant out of Vancouver, BC. This store has dozens of amazing varieties.
I’ve been on a real chai kick and got the biggest available size of this tea a month or so ago and I’m already nearly through it. I love it with milk and sugar, it has some caffeine and a spicy complexity that gets me going in the mornings. It’s amazing cold too, if I don’t finish the pot before it goes lukewarm I’ll put in a glass bottle in the fridge for later.
Oh and buy loose leaf tea. Even cellulose and paper teabags are apparently riddled with micro plastics.
Ya, I need to get off the bags. I had no idea about the micro plastics. I’m running by my kitchen store here in the next few days and buying a basket strainer.
How do you brew yours? I’ve also seen the little baskets on a string. It seems like that could work. Idk the basket seems like the most straight forward easiest thing to do.
I’m not sure how I feel about the flavors, I always hated them in coffee, I’m hesitant to order flavored tea.
The latching baskets, the little spring spoons, cages, muslin bags, I’ve tried them all and absolutely nothing is as convenient or easy as just getting a pot with an inset stainless steel infuser. The infuser just fits around the inside of the tea pot rim underneath the lid, and when my tea is ready I can dump used tea leaves right in the compost bin with a good tap or two, rinse it and it’s ready for another pot. Highly recommend it, don’t mess with anything more complicated.
No. I put it in the air fryer
I did it when having no kettle,
Main problem is that you don’t have a good temperature control, sometimes, you get mid-walm water, sometimes you get boiling water.
Even worse, you have this physical phenomena where water is above 100 degree but doesn’t boil, and as soon you move-it it starts boiling. At best it’s impressive but it can move into burn quickly.
Has that happened to you? I’ve not managed to make super heated water in the microwave.
Yes it already happened a couple of time. It starts boiling either when pulling-out or when putting the tea inside.
If you’re using distilled water there’s not enough minerals in the water to start the boiling process before the temperature crosses 100 C because microwaves heat it up so fast.
It also doesn’t necessarily have to be distilled water, but the the closer it is to just H2O, the higher the chance this will happen.
Apparently you can do it by turning off the microwave as soon as it starts boiling, turning it on again and repeating until everything boils at the same time and explodes.
The water continues to heat ~1 minute after microwaving stops, so I guess it could happen if you take it out very close to the boiling point.
That does not sound right. Do you have a source for that claim?
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No.
Why not heat it on the stove in a small pan?
For me it’s the fact that my cast iron stove takes ages to heat up
Yeah I grew up without a kettle and just lived with shitty badly heated water. Got myself a kettle after moving out and improved my tea experience greatly.
I got my parents a kettle though because my mom, especially, drinks about 10 cups of hot water a day, but she hates the kettle and won’t use it. I do not understand.
Yes, if I need only 1 cup of hot water, I use the microwave.
The electric kettle wants a minimum of 2 cups (1/2 liter), or else it makes funny noises.
Mine makes funny noises too, but since it has a marker for one cup, the noises obviously don’t matter.
Was gonna say, for one cup it seems like a better use of resources (in terms of power), the only obvious downside is temperature control
You can buy a mini kettle that has a minimum of 250-300 ml, or 1 cup.
I used to microwave water for all sorts of things before getting an induction stovetop.
Seriously, it goes from tap water to boiling in 2 minutes. It’s a game changer.
My electric kettle does about the same. Long enough to finish a piss before doing the water things.
Never mix up things there… 😇
Too late. Dumped my tea and drank my piss.
My kettle boils a mug’s worth of water in less than a minute, and it takes me longer than that for even a brief toilet visit and washing of hands. I have learned not to switch the kettle on until I get back from the bathroom, otherwise I’ll be boiling the water twice.
Important factors: 1) Britain has 230V mains power so electric kettles can boil water incredibly quickly, 2) The stereotype about Brits and tea is true in my case. I get through three to six mugs of the stuff per day. 3) Hot tea must be made with boiling water. Power isn’t cheap and re-boiling the water adds up over time.
Mine takes longer, but I never brew a single mug. I brew a full pot and I only reason I limit myself to that is because of the size of my kettle.
Induction hobs I think are still less efficient than an electric kettle, right? Correct me if I’m wrong. (I have both but I don’t have the know-how to measure the effect of either. Just what I’ve heard.)
It would be interesting to test. quick, someone poke Technology Connections.
He already did this one, iirc induction was better for Americans without access to 240v connections.
I think it’s this one?
afaik electric kettles are the most efficient machines around. something like 95% efficiency
Every thermal machine is technically ~100% efficient at producing heat, but then how much heat is spent usefully is another metric, depending on materials used (and subsequent thermal dissipation), loss in cables, etc.
Right. The hob needs to heat up entire surface of your cookware, and kettle transfers heat directly from the element below to water - only then some of that heat is dissipated.
Not how induction works.
Induction directly heats the bottom of the cookware (as opposed to regular hop heating the surface which then heats the bottom of the cookware), and from that bottom the heat is transferred through the entire volume of your utensils. And then food is heated off that.
If you have both, and a timer on your phone, should be easy enough to check. Put the same measured amount of water in both and see how long it takes to boil.
this only works if both have the same energy consumption.
this is probably not the case, so you also have to measure the energy consumption and then adapt the measured time accordingly.
Yeah I meant efficiency, not effectiveness. Like power consumption vs time.
Right. The hob need to heat up entire surface of your cookware, and kettle transfers heat directly from the element below to water - only then some of that heat is dissipated.
I did that in the past because we had no electric kettle at home. Today it’s the over way round: I have a kettle but no microwave
PSA: Microwaving water can actually be super dangerous because it’s possible to superheat it. When the surface is disrupted, it can violently boil all at once and hurt you.
Generally you need super pure water though, so if you don’t have a distiller and brand new unused dishes, it’s probably not an issue.
I use distilled water for espresso and tea… Thankfully I started because of my electric kettle and espresso machine. Keeping the machines cleaner.
Never microwaved distilled water.
Well, I think it also needs to be in a pristine dish with no scratches. Basically it can only happen if there’s nothing in the water to create bubbles and disrupt it, then it could possibly heat up without visibly boiling.
I’ve doon thot several times now. And so I -almost always- remember to check that the left digit on the timer is one.
American electric kettles are also quite a bit slower to boil because our mains voltage is so low. https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
Not once in my life.
I live in the US and I heat my tea water in an electric kettle. It probably isn’t as fast as yours, but it is still close to microwave speed. And I can heat up enough for several cups of tea and have it keep the rest hot. I usually drink more than one at a sitting.
Unless I’m misunderstanding your statement, you’re saying it’s faster to boil water in the microwave than the kettle? How’s that possible? I would think the microwave has more wasted energy
My microwave can boil a single cup of water faster than my kettle. My kettle can boil four cups of water a lot faster than my microwave. It all depends on the microwave and kettle (and the voltage available).
Huh. I guess the kettle has some thermal mass to it making it less efficient for small amounts
Microwave is blasting radiation at 100% efficiency as soon as you turn it on. Kettles heating elements need to heat up before they can heat the water.
I wonder what the efficiency of absorption is, though. Does 100% of emitted radiation get soaked up by the cup, or does some escape into the surroundings?
It doesn’t get absorbed so much as excite the water particles as it passes through. I’d imagine it would be more effective in the beginning when they’re standing relatively still.
We use a kettle or boil it in a pot. I would not even entertain the idea of microwaving the water.
We just have an instant hot water tap. Can’t live without it, haha.
I am an American. I got a stovetop kettle to boil water for my tea. My fiancée hates it and refuses to use it. My friends think it is weird that I don’t just use the microwave like a normal person.
You are the only normal person there
Electric kettles are a waste of space for many people. Limited use, fills up the counter. So then either you use the store or the microwave. We both know which one is faster.
I honestly don’t know which is faster since I’ve never used a microwave to boil water. An electric kettle is essential for me. It also boils water that can then be used for cooking so for me it’s versatile enough to justify the space. Toasters imo have much more limited use and those seem to be common in US households too.
Electric kettle is used more frequently than the coffee maker, and takes up less space. It’s faster too. I think it’s 2kw, while microwave is 800w. There are more powerful kettles too, up to 3kw i think.
I find this interesting, where I live everyone has one, and its used at least twice a day usually.
Im not against it, but an electric tea kettle is no slower, and less hassle. Seriously, 2 cups of water boils in under 2 minutes, it’s insane.
