Choosing a Kettle

At lunch yesterday, I surprised myself by ranting for a minute or two about kettles. Most people don't really think to much about them, but my employers have got through a surprising number of them over the last couple of years, and I've noticed the aspects of the designs that are useable, and those that aren't. Here, then, are a few notes you might find useful if you need to buy an electric kettle.

Upright kettles are far more usable. Sure, retro styling can be cool, but by putting the lid under the handle, they're a pain to fill. They also tend to fall foul of other items below; in particular, the ones we had featured no way at all of figuring out how much water was in them, unless you count "lifting it up and checking it's heavy". Not recommended.

The kettle should be transparent, or have a clear panel. Otherwise you can't tell how much water there is inside. Beware of the "gauge with a plastic ball" design - the ball furs up with limescale (especially in a hard water area like London), and within a few months it'll be useless.

Go cordless with a circular base. Most kettles are cord-free these days - and it is handy for filling - but some still have an asymmetric base, which means you have to fiddle around to put it back. A circular base with a central socket makes it easy to put things back.

Concealed, flat elements don't scale up. Or rather, they do, but at least they're far easier to clean than an exposed element.

In a hard water area like London, you'll need a filter. Most kettles have a gauze filter over the spout, but some - like the Brita kettle candace and I have at home, which is, I believe, discontinued - have a proper water filter. It can be annoying waiting for it to filter, but the water is less full of gunk - especially useful for green teas. (If you're regularly making that, though, you may want to look for a kettle that allows you to set the temperature of the water.)

Obviously, since we've got through a lot of kettles, I have a good idea what the failure modes are. The two common ones are that the power switches break, and that the kettle gets terminally unclean; usually that's because the filter gums up, but it can just be that the elements are too badly scaled for people to be happy. Both are probably only a real issue because of the sheer usage levels of the kettles, but if you're really fond of tea I thought I'd mention them.