Until yesterday, this nifty little device had been a part of my office tea setup for more than 5 years. It’s basically an electric coil that you submerge in water to heat it up. You can boil a cup of water using it in about 5 minutes. It does the job but there are a couple of quirks to be aware of.
First, it works well as long as you’re boiling 8oz or less at a time. Any quantity larger than this and you’ll be waiting a long time. Also, you must leave it submerged before unplugging or you’ll burn the coil. As you can imagine, having to constantly plug and unplug the coil after every steep is annoying so I use it with a wall plug that has an on/off switch.
I ended up replacing this with a 0.5L mini kettle from Amazon. Although it worked well, it made my desk look like a meth lab and with me being so accident prone, I was constantly paranoid about knocking something over while the coil was plugged in. I will, however, continue using it for travel. It’s so much easier to haul in your suitcase than a kettle and all you need to boil water is a heat proof cup. For $8, I definitely got my money’s worth.
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Thank you for posting about the ins and outs of this. I’ve been wanting one for a long while.
Of course, here it costs $40.
$40 is way overpriced for something this basic. Since you’re in Canada, I would check out Bed Bath and Beyond. I just did a quick Google search and found it for $14 on their Canadian website.
Good thinking. Thanks. I’ll get on that.
I’ve never heard of such a device – neat! I’ve bookmarked this as I feel like getting one is a great idea (especially for travel)! Also, I take it that you have travelled with a kettle — we are forever travelling with appliances (notably our blender since being vegan requires a good blender), and yay for others also travelling with appliances!
@Courtney yep, one less appliance to haul. And as a bonus, it hasn’t freaked out TSA (yet)
Thank you for posting about the ins and outs of this. I’ve been wanting one for a long while.
Of course, here it costs $40.
$40 is way overpriced for something this basic. Since you’re in Canada, I would check out Bed Bath and Beyond. I just did a quick Google search and found it for $14 on their Canadian website.
Good thinking. Thanks. I’ll get on that.
I’ve never heard of such a device – neat! I’ve bookmarked this as I feel like getting one is a great idea (especially for travel)! Also, I take it that you have travelled with a kettle — we are forever travelling with appliances (notably our blender since being vegan requires a good blender), and yay for others also travelling with appliances!
@Courtney yep, one less appliance to haul. And as a bonus, it hasn’t freaked out TSA (yet)