Tea Kettles


 

Rusty James

TVWBB Emerald Member
Unusual subject, but do any of you here drink hot tea?

Coffee tends to bother my stomach, so I switched to hot tea (green, black, herbal, etc) for several years now. I used to make hot water with the drip coffee maker, and a month ago, someone gave my wife an old ceramic Royal Sealy 350 watt electric tea kettle - which I tried, and it made some great tasting tea water.

Unfortunately, the element quit, so I purchased a proctor silex electric water pot from Walmart (plastic with a 1500 watt stainless steel heating element) for less than $20.00. I cleaned it per instructions, but my teas tastes bitter.

Would stainless steel be the culprit here? I have soft water for what it's worth.

As for the drip coffee maker, it makes fairly good tasting tea water, but not quite as good as the ceramic tea pot did.

Maybe a glass tea kettle would be the best choice of all, but I don't think they recommend them for electric ranges.
 
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I use my Polish Pottery teapot, heated up in the microwave. Polish Pottery is oven and microwave safe, but I'm not sure about using it directly on a stove top.
 
I've had tea daily for.. HOLY CATS!!! Since the 90s! how did this happen?

I've got a gas stove and always used the old timey silver one with the whistle. For some reason I never liked water heated with an electric element. (In Chicago our water is hard. Like our heads and our souls.)
 
With Fall and Winter coming-up, I start to drink more Tea

If it's just for me / one person, I just heat-up a cup in the micro.
If it's for two - I have a basic, white ceramic pot that I picked-up at Crate & Barrel which works fine.

If it's for more people, or if I plan to be really thirsty - I have one of those metal stovetop ones in Stainless with the spout whistle
(but that one usually sits on a shelf in the basement because we rarely use it)

If you like tea - I find that I REALLY like the Teavana stainless mesh single-cup infusers -
You just set them into a mug of hot water / they are REALLY easy to clean-up and I find that I prefer loose tea most of the time.

Someone from work went to China and brought back some Pu-er tea, which is a fermented, compressed tea (this one is in mini-"pucks" that need to be broken-up a bit to use)
I really like that one plain and plan to get my hands on some of it's higher-grade cousins (I've heard that the "good stuff" comes in a brick in a bamboo box...)
 
I have a small Bodum hot water pot I used every day to make coffee at work. I got that one specifically because it was only 800W. They had a tendency to put too many cubicles on a single circuit and a large power draw could pop the breaker and then you had to go find the maintenance guy to unlock the breaker box. I never noticed an off flavor I could pin on the pot, but then I was making coffee so it would probably mask a problem unless it was a really big one. I did regularly clean the pot with citric acid to get rid of the lime build up.

If money isn't a huge issue, both the Brits and the Japanese have some pretty impressive hot water pots. Given the popularity of tea in those places I'd have to think they'd produce hot water without any added elements. Zojirushi has some very nice models, though they're usually rather expensive for something that just heats water. If you drink a LOT of tea, it might be worth the investment. I know one model is a heated air pot that heats to a user specified temperature and maintains that temp all day long. When you want hot water you just hold your cup under the spigot and push the button on top.

The Bodum I have is fairly quick even at 800W (most are 1500W). The power is supplied though a separate base so you can lift the pot and pour without getting tangled in a cord. My only criticism is it has just a single "on" button. You push it and it will heat until the water has come to a full, vigorous boil, and then automatically turns off. If you pour before it has turned off it will go right back into heating mode, even if you emptied the pot. Being thermostatically controlled it will shut off before melting down, but it's still kind of annoying until you get used to how it works. This small Bodum wasn't very expensive.
 
I haven't had a chance to read everyone's posts yet, but what about this model?...

https://www.walmart.com/ip/One-All-...B&visitor_id=ZnFAB2qGdpCzQzzeO6jxI8#read-more

I'm seeing a lot of California proposition 65 stuff on some kettles. Even this glass unit. :confused:

102cfc82-d270-41d0-94c1-eb7c9c2bc593_1.a0152a4699175436b490449d5dea203d.jpeg
 
I'm seeing a lot of California proposition 65 stuff on some kettles. Even this glass unit. :confused:
Virtually every substance on the planet contains stuff that runs afoul of CA Prop 65. That thing is a joke. They made it vastly too broad so it's basically a case of the little boy who cried wolf. The good intention of warning people of truly dangerous substances is lost in the nonsense of too many warning labels. Seriously, does anyone pause when entering the mall because there's a Prop 65 warning label on the door?
 
Of course I drink tea...
Have done so since before I could walk.

Tea in the morning with breakfast (Black, no sugar), coffee the rest of the morning and back to tea in the afternoon.
But now, I have even given up on coffee as most people here drink instant coffee and I can't stand the stuff!

Kettles:
Tea needs to be made from boiling water (in my opinion) so a coffee maker is just not good enough.
Therefor: Either a kettle on the stove or a electric kettle. (I recently bought a beautiful le creuset kettle. Just looks awesome on the stove and since it has a whistle, I don't forget about it :cool:)
I then make the tea straight in my insulated cup (0.5 ltr). Either with a teabag or with loose tea in a tea-egg
 
Of course I drink tea...
Have done so since before I could walk.

Tea in the morning with breakfast (Black, no sugar), coffee the rest of the morning and back to tea in the afternoon.
But now, I have even given up on coffee as most people here drink instant coffee and I can't stand the stuff!

Blech! No sweeter?

I don't use sugar, but I do use either splenda or stevia (mostly stevia), and I also add small wedges of lemon and lime.

Run of the mill coffee brands her in the USA run afoul of my stomach, but in the past year or so, I've tolerated Caribou decaf, and Community Coffee decaf. Caribou is expensive, but we catch it on sale. Community Coffee (roasted in Baton Rouge, LA) is very good, and is about half the cost of Caribou.


Kettles:
Tea needs to be made from boiling water (in my opinion) so a coffee maker is just not good enough.
Therefor: Either a kettle on the stove or a electric kettle. (I recently bought a beautiful le creuset kettle. Just looks awesome on the stove and since it has a whistle, I don't forget about it :cool:)
I then make the tea straight in my insulated cup (0.5 ltr). Either with a teabag or with loose tea in a tea-egg


I believe you're right about boiling water. My drip coffee maker just couldn't compare to the Royal Sealy tea pot in terms of heat and flavor. Higher heat brings out the best in tea, although I've heard that some teas do better at 180°
 
Lo and behold, my brother brought me a truck-load of family heirlooms over the weekend - including an electric coffee percolator, and a whistling Paul Revere tea kettle with a copper bottom. Either of these seem to make better tea water than the Proctor Silex - which I will return soon, but I may try the glass kettle as well.

It's amazing the taste difference of tea when using water heated in a neutral device.

Thanks for the input, all, and I will examine all of the suggested choices. I did a genealogy search months ago, and I discovered that my ancestors originated from England. Maybe that's why I like hot tea, lol.
 
I have a few odds & ends for tea........ I have several tea infusers- probably like the one from Oxo the best, got an all-clad whistling kettle, but my favorite seems to be the iced tea makers. I've gone through a couple of them.... If interested, I fill the gallon (or so) pitcher full, fill the water reservoir to the max (before it starts leaking - if you get the one I link you'll see), and fill the basket about half full and set it to strong. Then I put the tea in the fridge.

My favorite teas: Earl Grey and Green Tea Garden by Davidson....16 oz zippered pouches. I've gone through countless packages of these.
 
Clint, what's the difference in the iced tea maker and a Mr. Coffee machine?

My wife places 3 family-size tea bags in the coffee maker, and runs a full pot of water over them. She then pours the tea into a gallon pitcher and fills it to the top with water. Sugar (Splenda) is added to the pitcher before pouring the tea.

Not sure if I understand the benefits of the tea maker.
 
I'm also a big fan of the Mr. Coffee 3-quart iced tea maker. I should warn that there are two 3-quart versions available, one with a square design and one with a round design, and the square design is known to leak all over the counter on occasion due to the shape of the pitcher spout and the way it engages (or doesn't) with the brew basket. So bad that I complained and they replaced my square one with a round one and I've been happy since the swap.

I don't know if you need an iced tea machine if you already have a drip coffee maker. My wife likes French press, and I don't drink coffee, so going straight for the iced tea machine makes sense for us. The brewing basket has two settings--regular or strong--and with the strong setting, the exit hole becomes really tiny. So maybe there's a difference in the flow of water and therefore brewing time/strength between the tea machine and the coffee machine. I also wonder if there's a difference in water temp for coffee vs. tea?

It just does it all in one easy process. I place loose tea between two small coffee filters into the brew basket set to "strong". You measure water using a mark on the pitcher and pour it into the machine, then fill the pitcher with a corresponding amount of ice to a different mark. A few minutes of brewing and I've got 3 quarts of ice cold tea ready to drink from the serving pitcher. It's got a strainer on one side of the lid to retain ice, and no strainer on the other side that will let some ice exit the pitcher.
 
round vs square noses on those pitchers: I got one from Walmart when visiting family a couple years ago, they swore they'd never use it so sent it back to me. The brewer broke in transit so now I have one of each - I thought about rounding the square spout with hot air but I just set it in place real carefully.

I typically drink a pot of coffee per day (morning), then tea throughout the day (sometimes).

A coffee maker would probably be fine, if used only for tea, but tea seems to have a more delicate flavor that might be affected by the coffee if you switch back & forth.

Try the green tea garden mentioned above (davidson's) if you think it needs sweetener. I've been making it like mentioned above, but with extra water instead of ice, for years.....it works for me. I just received a reusable basket filter for it today, I've been using just a single paper filter.
 
I don't know if you need an iced tea machine if you already have a drip coffee maker. My wife likes French press, and I don't drink coffee, so going straight for the iced tea machine makes sense for us. The brewing basket has two settings--regular or strong--and with the strong setting, the exit hole becomes really tiny. So maybe there's a difference in the flow of water and therefore brewing time/strength between the tea machine and the coffee machine. I also wonder if there's a difference in water temp for coffee vs. tea?


Starbucks gave me a sample of french-press coffee, and it had a very smooth taste to it with little or no bitterness. I assume that's the purpose of a press?


As for the temperature difference between tea and coffee makers, you bring up a very interesting point. From what I can gather, some teas require water to be at or near the boiling point. If a tea maker can reach those temps, sounds like it could be used to make hot tea. Coffee makers top out near 180° if I recall correctly. The old antique ceramic tea pot I damaged, heated water to boiling, and I could taste a noticeable difference, favoring it over the Mr. Coffee.
 
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