British kettles draw so much power, the electric utility had to consider the additional power draw on the grid from synchronized tea-making during the commercial breaks of a popular soap opera, back when broadcast TV was king.
> I envy my European friends' 240v electric kettles
... do you not have electric kettles in the US? Foolishly, I thought this was a standard kitchen appliance all over the world, I've even seen it in smaller cities in Peru.
We do. Like others have said, they're unusual here -- in part, because culturally we drink a lot more coffee than we do tea, but also because heating a large-ish volume of water with a normal American outlet takes awhile.
My solution to drinking a cup of tea is also unusual: I have a no-longer-in-production Sunbeam Hotshot and I use it heat only as much water as I need right now.
It raises one tea-cup worth of water from whatever temperature it is that comes out of the cold tap to boiling in about 40 seconds.
I just dump a cup of water in, push one button to heat it up, wait until it boils, and then push another button to dispense that hot liquid into the cup that I'm using for tea.
We do, but they’re limited to much lower wattage due to the outlet limits. A typical US kettle is 1100-1400W, and takes maybe 1-2 minutes to boil. Kettles in the UK are typically 2.5-3kW.
And they're probably not real. Take look at any of the clones of the dyson hair dryer and check their proclaimed RPMs, many of them would have the tip of the fan blade spinning at several mach if they actually hit their limit.
There's aquarium heaters on amazon that say they're 10kw or more and plug into a 120 outlet.
I bought a magnet that is supposed to hold "150 pounds", but pulls off the ceiling (in it's strongest position) with just 10-15 pounds.
What's your point? There's likely a few 1800W kettles that exist too. They are not common, and you definitely will never see anything above 1800W (outside of maybe some specialized commercial product designed for an 20A outlet) in the US. A 'normal' average kettle is going to be ~1200W here. Kettles start at 2kW and go up from there in the UK.
We don't have a need for an exclusive water boiling device as we aren't obsessed with tea. Most people drink coffee and the heating element is already built into the coffee maker. Idk what else you'd use it for. The stove works fine for boiling water without needing a separate appliance.
They’re far faster than a stovetop most of the time, have auto shutoff so you can wander away for a minute or two or not pay attention to it and not boil off a lot of water, etc.
Many parts of the world, it’s a good idea to boil water before using it for drinking, brushing teeth, etc.
So it’s actually really convenient for many use cases besides tea or coffee.
That's fine, but there are no use cases in the US. If we are boiling water, it's for food, and we're doing it on the stove, just like the way everyone else cooks. In the US, there is no use case for a specialized water boiling appliance.
We can agree they're less common than the UK, but saying they have "no use case" is a gross exaggeration. Pretty much everyone I know owns a kettle, given how cheap they are (~$15-20 for an OK one). Great for hot chocolate, coffee, tea, boiling water for a pot of water (to speed it up vs heating up your entire house), and numerous other reasons.
I have been known to heat water in a microwave after doing the calculations needed to know roughly when the water would reach boiling. It is rather quick once the microwave timer starts going.
They’re readily available, but most households don't actually have one. Many more households have a coffee maker, which is essentially the same thing but specialized for dripping the boiling water through coffee grounds. Anyone else who needs boiling water just puts a pot on the stove, or possibly an old–fashioned metal tea kettle.
We could even use 240v electric tea kettles here in the US if we wanted to; most kitchens with an electric range and oven have 240v (or 208v) outlets to plug them in to. But those outlets are usually inconveniently located for counter–top appliances. It wouldn’t cost much to add another above the counter, but it is rarely done in practice. Of course, in many parts of the US natural gas heating is cheaper than electric so the houses there are built for gas ranges and ovens instead.
