I’ve had this kettle for a few months and feel like I know it well enough to give it a fair review now. First of all I probably would not have bought this for myself but of course I didn’t turn it down when someone offered to buy it for me and I’m glad because it is a wonderful machine.
If you drink a wide variety of teas then this won’t replace your teapot. Because it is a bit hard to clean I prefer to brew ‘pure’ teas in it and keep a separate teapot for flavoured teas. I made the mistake of brewing a chai mix in it when I first got it and it took a week before the taste of cinnamon stopped finding its way into every cup of tea I made.
When I’m not using it as a teapot it makes a great variable temperature kettle, and secretly I’m glad it hasn’t made my teapot collection completely redundant. I haven’t seen variable kettles on the market (at least in Australia) that allow you to heat water in 5 degree increments and I really like that control.
I’ve lowered the score just a little bit because although I do love it, I’m not completely comfortable with replacing the ritual of tea with a magnetic basket. For that reason for me it is primarily a very expensive (and very good) kettle and just another teapot in my collection.
Your logic is why i bought the variable kettle instead of the actual tea maker :)