Use a British Challenger tank to heat your water instead

Bri'ish people: Conquer half of the world in the name of spices

Also Bri'ish people: Refuse to season food

I'd never dare make a joke like this, not because it's mean or whatever, but because I wouldn't want to show off how little I know about the world.

This isn’t true, Americans make tea by boiling a stovetop kettle pouring that into a pitcher with 5 teabags adding 1-3 cups of sugar after about 3 minutes and then filling that pitcher to the top with hot tap water. And then pouring that over ice after about 5 minutes

🤣
Ever made sun tea? Kinda granola and time consuming but it's yummy.
- Nah not granola imo. I always thought it was poverty tea, use the sun don't run up the electric bill

Americans who drink tea generally use a stovetop kettle. Sometimes they use an electric one. But what does it matter how the water gets hot, if the water's hot? Microwave radiation doesn't leave a taste in water or something

Boiling it with some kind of kettle can make minerals drop out of solution, but I really doubt it would make a significant taste difference unless the kettle is attached to copper piping leading to a catch basin (aka a still).
I have been drinking a lot of tea because I had a persistent cough. I use the microwave because it's faster than boiling my kettle.

No we don’t. We don’t drink tea at all

You kid, but I really do find this stereotype of Americans fascinating in it's persistence. Every supermarket I've been to in America during the last decade has a tea section that is double the size of the coffee section next to it. These stores wouldn't be stocking like that if Americans weren't buying a ton of tea, but yet the idea of America being a tea desert continues.
- it's not that they don't drink tea, it's that they drink it wrong
- The difference in coffee varieties is a lot more nuanced than tea flavors so it makes more sense for tea to have more space even if it isn't drunken as much. It depends a lot on what part of the country you're in too.
  People who drink a lot of tea just have kettles though... I don't know where myth that US kettles are slow came from.

Electric kettles have been available at every American ~~supermarket~~ superstore for literal decades.

Yes they aren't ubiquitous here in the way they are in the UK and elsewhere, but they're absolutely not a rarity at all.

Sincerely, somebody who has been using an electric kettle for almost two decades.

edit: wrong word. I meant places like Walmart, not places like Safeway.

I never once saw an electric kettle until I was an adult. Then again, I'm from Idaho.
- But how do you boik your potatoes?
Curious if you have any insight as to why Americans in movies always boil water on the stove top? Australian here and we use electric Kettles. I assumed it was a 120 vs 240V thing.
- Again, ubiquity. Especially since the vast majority of Americans who make coffee at home do so in drip coffee machines, there just isn't a lot the typical American is needs to heat up hot water for, so to most people an electric kettle is a non-mandatory item. Even most American tea drinkers honestly aren't daily tea drinkers (myself included), so for many the benefit of having extra counter space beats out the benefit of having convenient hot water, and a stovetop kettle can most easily be put away in the back of a cabinet somewhere.
The people that don't have kettles don't drink tea. Pretty much everyone I know who drinks plenty of tea have kettles, and everyone knows that they're an option.
- Well considered it was only 5 days ago that I made this comment, you successfully clocked me as a tea drinker and you might be on to something with your theory.

Lol, no we don't. We just don't drink tea. Unless you're in the south n it's more sugar water than tea.

Southerners are actually 2/3 hummingbird

I have an electric kettle and actually go out of my way to get good tea thank you.

I use a kettle at home, but I’ve used a microwave at work. I don’t understand what’s remotely laughable about doing so. Boiling water is boiling water.

I’ll tell what is laughable is how America restaurants typically serve hot tea. They draw a small metal container of hot water from the spigot on the side of the coffee maker, and bring it to the table with an empty cup and a teabag. By the time the bag goes in the water, the water is far too cold to infuse properly.

~~Here, here~~ Hear, hear! Restaurant hot water pots blow!
- I think it's hear, hear

I have an electric kettle, AND I season my food, lol

I’m British and was shocked to learn that other countries don’t even have 3000W electric kettles.

Just put the kettle on top of your Intel laptop...
Our typical US 120V household outlets can't pull that much power. Most electric kettles here draw about 1.5 kW.
Could run a 240V circuit (or tap into the oven/range 240V circuit I suppose) and use an imported UK kettle. I've heard of people here actually doing this, but I can live with the slower boil times 😄
- Just make a kettle with two plugs.

240V Masterrace

It actually doesn’t make that big of difference. It is more likely Americans don’t have kettles because we drink more coffee and have drip coffee brewers instead.
https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
We use a kettle here in the states and it’s just fine. But it’s mostly used for French press coffee.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/_yMMTVVJI4c
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I use a gas stove to heat my kettle.

The microwave is only used to melt butter before I make cheesecake.

Americans: invent machine to boil water

Also Americans: use that machine to boil water

Rest of the world: 😱

The cavity magnetron was invented in England by a man who was clearly a tea drinker. The Americans successfully commercialised the device some years later, no doubt by a coffee drinker.
If you guys had more volts in the household electrics you too could use an electric kettle like we do in the UK.

Most people I know use a kettle as well as I. Hailing from Michigan!!

I've alwaus been fascinated how Limeys are so adamant about how American 110v homes are inferior, but they all have an insane fear of electricity.
- Why is 110v better than 220v?

wait people make tea in the microwave? gross lol

wait people don't understand how microwaves work? dumb lol
@Gork @Pika yeah. im always trying to avoid the microwave because things just taste better using any other way of heating.
- Hot water is hot water.
- Microwaves are good for some tasks and bad for others. They're generally fine for reheating food if you know how to use one, for example. Absolutely no difference between hot water that comes out of a microwave and any other method.

I like my electric kettle because it has temperature settings for specific tea leaves/types and it has a large volume. But if I just want to boil one cup, the microwave is a no-brainer.

Microwave is slow
- I've timed it with my kettle and it's literally the same time to boil one cup.

I have a machine that keeps hot water on tap. You peasants heat your water up? I pour mine in the cup already boiling hot from the tap. Kettles are so 90s early 2000s.

The hot water coming out of the tap isn't supposed to be boiling.
Sounds like a huge waste of electricity

The British sent us Beatles and Monty Python, let them have this.

I only make tea with water from Boston Harbor.

Have an electric kettle. It's slower than kettles in the UK and Ireland as it maxes out at a lower wattage.

Ok, Brits. Educate me. What's the benefit of a tea kettle over heating water in the mug you'll drink it out of in the microwave? (Assuming you're making one cup of tea.)

Erm, the microwave is faster and more efficient at heating water.

American outlet electricity, I recall, is such that it is actually some kind of weak. You guys need the microwave because your kettles aren't getting enough to eat, so they can't lift.
There was a technology connections video of that I think...
- https://youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c
  Here's that video btw.
  TL:DW Even in the US with its 120V electrical system the kettle is faster than gas or electric stove kettle (he didn't test microwave) but most people just don't drink tea often enough to warrant a separate appliance for it. He does go into the whole microwaving water in a follow up video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RpoXFk-ixZc

If you're british and lacking a tank, you can always use a gatling gun to heat the water instead

I think most use a kettle on the stovetop.

Could someone explain why it matters? Is microwaving water for tea akin to instant coffee or Keurig to snobby coffee drinkers? (I nuke water for tea, but when it comes to coffee I use distilled water, fresh beans, a scale and it's kinda ritualistic)

At the end of the day, everything is just atoms moving at different wiggle rates, that's the technical term. It doesn't matter what makes them wiggle faster or slower.
It's fairly inefficient and less convenient than a dedicated electric kettle, but no there's nothing wrong with the results. I did pick up a cheap electric kettle recently and it's nice, but doesn't get a ton of use since I don't drink that much tea.
No, it doesn't actually matter as to the quality of the tea. Hot water is hot water. Assuming you don't just microwave til it's boiling, and instead get it to the proper temperature, there will be 0 difference.
A lot of electric kettles have fine temperature control, so it's easier to dial in on an exact temperature. Brewing a lot of teas too hot will burn them and make them taste bitter. This is 100% a temperature thing, though, and what you use to make it hot has no impact.

Truly the superior hot water

And here i am drinking water cold.

If I have a little extra time I'll run water through the coffee maker without any grounds if that's somehow better?