Steamed up over kettlegate? Or is the New York Times pile-on just a storm in a teacup?

Cait, I keep seeing tweets about the joy of that most utilitarian of kitchen appliances: the electric kettle. Why is everyone talking about kettles … again?

Well, Imogen – the New York Times has just discovered kettles.

One of the world’s most-read newspapers did a deep dive last week into the benefits of the good old electric kettle.

This piece on “home kettles” blew up after it was promoted as “A Swift and Easy Way to Heat Water Without Using A Stove” – earning the paper, and by extension the entire population of the United States, a hearty internet roasting.

The NYT’s favourite (the Cuisinart CPK-17 PerfecTemp Cordless Electric Kettle) will set Americans back US$85 and sounds like a complete rort to me. My kettle was A$39 from Kmart. But we are talking about people who have just found out they can boil water without turning the stove on – if they want to spend a small fortune, who am I to stop them?

Americans not using electric kettles has been a thing for a while. Every few years, the internet is reminded that American homes are traditionally kettle-less and we lose our minds all over again.

This time a tweet from Stefan Roberts – from the notably kettle-heavy UK – set it all off:

Everyone jumped in.

I lived in the States for a bit, and it’s true I rarely saw an electric kettle. People microwaved their water, I swear. Do Americans really not use them, or is it some kind of urban myth?

Wait, Imogen, are you telling me you would heat your water in the microwave?

No, no. (I would never.) I lived in an apartment where we heated water in a pot on the stove, or in a … stovetop kettle.

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OK, we can continue. But no, kettles in the US are not a staple like they are in Australia. Most people, like you did, boil their water on the stove (which sounds very cottagecore and not very quick). The other way is to heat it up in the microwave – which sounds gross and I assume would make the water taste weird.

But you can find electric kettles in the US and people do own them. Our very own Miles Herbert swears he had one growing up in Illinois.

Miles reckons he has “never in my life seen someone heat water in a pot or in the microwave”.

Asked why his house had the correct equipment for making tea while the rest of the US apparently does not, Miles says they arrived in the midst of a “tea explosion pushed by Starbucks”, which is an upsettingly American reason to acquire a kitchen appliance.

Wait, so the United States has a Big Tea lobby, as well as the “just microwave the mug it will be fine” lobby? It truly is a divided nation. How did Starbucks manage to push correct tea drinking on the Herbert household but leave so many others behind?

According to Miles, his mum already had a stovetop kettle when Starbucks started pushing tea, so they were already halfway there. Getting an electric kettle if you have already bought into the need to boil water for tea several times a day just makes sense.

Other Americans claim they too owned a kettle.

So between Miles’s mum and possumkratom69 that’s at least two.

So, is this NYT situation just a beat-up over a headline? A … storm in a teacup, if you will? Or indicative of a deeper, more sinister cultural divide?

It’s a bit of both. It is possible that in New York, where kitchen bench space is at a premium, an electric kettle does not make the cut. Especially if you’re in the habit of buying most of your caffeinated beverages ready to drink.

The US also broke from the British empire in a fairly dramatic and tea-based fashion. According to Miles, the lack of kettles is about capitalism (of course) and also about “the American dream and pushing back against the British empire”.

OK, but why don’t they like this incredibly convenient and delightful and frankly indispensable device? Is it just that they don’t drink much tea? How do they make noodles?

There is an actual reason. It’s kind of boring.

The US does not have the voltage standards to use electric kettles. So the wall sockets for power cords are 100-127 volts , whereas in the UK, for instance, they have 220-240.

In Australia, the standard voltage is 230V. Boiling a kettle in the US would take a lot longer – think a minute and a half – so you could argue they’re not that much quicker or more convenient than the stove.

Why not just use a converter?

The internet also has lots of views on if this works, and if it’s worth it. Some of them seem quite dangerous. I am not an electrician, so I am not going to answer.