Just picked up a little electric kettle at Costco this afternoon. It's a Saeco product, and man, is it FAST!
It has some nifty features... in addition to boiling nearly 1/2 gallon of water in less than 2 minutes, it also has four temp settings: boil (212F), high (200F), medium (150F), and low (100F). It will shut off immediately or keep things at a selected temp for two hours. It also has led lighting that illuminates the translucent upper part of the carafe with green, blue, violet, or red depending on the temp selected or reach, as well as a digital readout of the actual temp of the water.
I intend to bring this thing to work, cause there's no hot water dispenser there and I do like to have some tea or chai or hot cocoa from time to time.
I might even get a second one for home - it will be nice in the winter.
Sipping some Oolong tea (Ti Kuan Yin) I just made with the kettle set to High (200F). Would have preferred a 190F setting for Oolong but the initial temp was more like 190F anyway, which is just about perfect for this brew. The Medium (150F) setting should be good for Green tea and maybe for instant chai/cocoa as well. In any case, the Oolong I just made seems to have come out good: naturally sweet, smooth, full-bodied with just a hint of bitter. It's a special tea, a gift from my Mandarin instructor last spring. Came in a beautiful gilded box. Will be hard to find more when it runs out. Probably top of the line when it comes to Ti Kuan Yin.
Of course, I brewed the tea is a little teapot - a glass globe affair with a removable fine mesh stainless tea basket. At work I'll probably use teabags, though.
It has some nifty features... in addition to boiling nearly 1/2 gallon of water in less than 2 minutes, it also has four temp settings: boil (212F), high (200F), medium (150F), and low (100F). It will shut off immediately or keep things at a selected temp for two hours. It also has led lighting that illuminates the translucent upper part of the carafe with green, blue, violet, or red depending on the temp selected or reach, as well as a digital readout of the actual temp of the water.
I intend to bring this thing to work, cause there's no hot water dispenser there and I do like to have some tea or chai or hot cocoa from time to time.
I might even get a second one for home - it will be nice in the winter.
Sipping some Oolong tea (Ti Kuan Yin) I just made with the kettle set to High (200F). Would have preferred a 190F setting for Oolong but the initial temp was more like 190F anyway, which is just about perfect for this brew. The Medium (150F) setting should be good for Green tea and maybe for instant chai/cocoa as well. In any case, the Oolong I just made seems to have come out good: naturally sweet, smooth, full-bodied with just a hint of bitter. It's a special tea, a gift from my Mandarin instructor last spring. Came in a beautiful gilded box. Will be hard to find more when it runs out. Probably top of the line when it comes to Ti Kuan Yin.
Of course, I brewed the tea is a little teapot - a glass globe affair with a removable fine mesh stainless tea basket. At work I'll probably use teabags, though.
