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Coming from the UK I can't believe that only 80% of households own an electric kettle. The idea of going to someone's house and not finding a kettle seems genui
by teamonkey 13y ago
Coming from the UK I can't believe that only 80% of households own an electric kettle. The idea of going to someone's house and not finding a kettle seems genuinely ludicrous. Not just houses - almost every break room of every business will have one.
Of course, they cost quite a bit less on average in the UK.
- rgbrenner 13y agoYou just described coffee makers in the US. Tea kettles on the other hand... can't recall ever seeing one in real life.
- petercooper 13y agoMaybe the other 20% own non-electric kettles, like us, or have one-touch boiling water systems, like my parents. When our last electric kettle blew up 3-4 years ago, we decided to go with a good, old fashioned metal kettle that we use on the hob. Works well, doesn't ever break, and even makes it a bit more of an 'event' to put the kettle on as you get all the boiling sounds, the whistle going off, etc. My parents, on the other hand, have a thing that produces boiling water at the touch a button so they just use that to dump water into their mugs instead. Either way, an electric kettle is far from the only solution .
- cowls 13y agoKettle on the hob sounds so much more fun then boiling water at the touch of a button. I feel like there needs to be some ceremony to the tea making, it cant just be pored from a tap there needs to be some kind of wait preceding it.
- monkeynotes 13y agoDrinking tea in the UK isn't about the fun of the kettle. It's a matter of necessity and the whole process is utilitarian. An efficient and predictable water boiler is what is needed, not a 'fun' tea making ceremony. The English largely drink the fannings of tea leaves (poorest quality) it's not about ceremony, fun, or quality, believe me.
- petercooper 13y agoWe only drink tea when people visit, so the kettle does play a role. Being gas, it takes longer to boil, giving a nice period of often tea-related small talk before it's shrieking for mercy. If one is in an office or one drinks tea because one's addicted to it then yes, the kettle would be more of an inconvenience, but not everyone lives such fast, non ceremonial lives.
- cowls 13y agoI feel you are not embracing the tea drinking enough. I am well aware what the English drink, being one of them and all!
- rmc 13y agoMaybe the other 20% own non-electric kettles You mean those old fashioned kettles that are little more than a pot that you put on the hob? Nope. No way do 20% of UK houses have that sort of old fashioned system. That's like claiming 20% of UK houses still have outhouses and don't have indoor toilets. It always amazes me how the ridiculuous old fashioned non-electric kettles are still popular in USA.
- petercooper 13y agoI did also mention boiling water systems like one touch "Quick Cup" type jugs or even boiling water taps as are popular in posher houses now. Nonetheless, I don't find it so farfetched. We are a wellish-to-do gadget heavy household and we're content with a gas kettle. Other people continue to drive manual transmission cars. Some people even use Internet Explorer! It's a funny old world.
- glomph 13y agoFunny you should mention transmission. Something like 80% of cars in the UK are manual transmission.
- seabee 13y agoDon't forget they have 110v but the same current limits on their plugs, so at best their kettles will use 1.5kW. The speed advantage isn't there. If you have a hot water-based appliance the coffee maker offers far greater convenience. Now you have even less reason for a kettle.
- laurencerowe 13y agoI've not found coffee makers terribly convenient for making tea.
- seabee 13y agoI know you are kidding but the pod/cup 'coffee' makers support tea too, now that is certainly convenient :)
- DanBC 13y agoWe can buy budget kettles for £5 in supermarkets. Plastic, not nice, but functional.
- alan_cx 13y agoYeah. In fact, my current kettle cost £2.99. That was 6 ish months ago. I buy them, and treat them as throwaway. They seem to last as long as £30 ish kettles, so why bother spending more? My cheapo ones last about a year, then I just get a new one. Awful for the environment, but there you go.
- Crito 13y agoI suspect it is somewhere around 80%. It seems inconceivable to me that a US house might not have a microwave (even unfurnished apartments I rented from slumlords in college came with microwaves), but apparently many do not: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/appliances/appliances.html http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/appliances/appliances.html
- alan_cx 13y agoNo. Microwaves are a general cooking thing, and relatively new. Not considered necessary. Tea, in the UK, is so ingrained in the culture, and has been around so long, that kettles are almost like cutlery. I can't imagine a house or business in the UK without one. Hell, you even find kettles in vans out on site. Where there is a Brit, with in about 20m, you'll find a kettle, and a tea bag. The only exception to that could well be from recent immigrants. They may not be in to tea in the same way, and may not be so wedded to the kettle. Even then, one British thing immigrants quickly pick up, possibly to help integrate, its drinking tea. In short, dont mess with the British and our tea. Oh, BTW. Im British, I can't stand tea. Nasty foul bitter bile. Who the hell likes this stuff? Surely only sadists actually like tea? I like coffee.....
- EliRivers 13y agoNasty foul bitter bile. Mnay teas are not at all bitter. Did you only try the cheap tea? PG Tips, Tetley, Typhoo, that sort of thing? The cheap stuff is horrible.
- Crito 13y agoNew or not, I literally cannot picture a home without a microwave. My best guess is that most are the homes of immigrants.
- dasil003 13y agoInterestingly I live in the UK and have neither a microwave nor an electric kettle. Incidentally, I am technically an immigrant (from the US), though not with the connotations of what I assume you were envisioning.
- eterm 13y agoThey also last 2-3 years at most ime. There was a time my old office had the kettle break every 3-4 months.
- teamonkey 13y agoYeah, but think how many times an office kettle boils compared to a household one.
- baha_man 13y ago"Overall ownership of kettles has declined from 83 per cent of the population in 2008 to 78 per cent in 2012." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262020/Humble-kettle-losing-steam-Britains-homes-competition-coffee-machines-hits-sales.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262020/Humble-kettl...
- _mulder_ 13y agoSeems to be a confusion of terms. 80% of the population is not normally the same as 80% of households.
- thatthatis 13y agoI was pulling reasonable numbers out of the air to do an order of magnitude/what would you have to believe analysis. It's unclear from that article what "ownership" means, given that a kettle is a household-level item, I'm not sure if it would matter if you did your survey as "do you own a kettle" or "is there a kettle in your house" -- they should sum up to about the same percentage. Maybe a smaller percentage of the population would say they own a kettle than would say they have one in their house due to different interpretations of what it means to "own" something. I'd expect those differences to be within the margin of error of most surveys.
- rmc 13y agoNot to mention work places. If someone doesn't own a kettle at home, but there is a kettle at work that they use to drink tea, then they essentially are part of the UK kettle-culture.
- baha_man 13y ago"80% of the population is not normally the same as 80% of households." Sure, but I was surprised by how low the figure was. I would have expected it to be more like 90-95%.
- Thrymr 13y agoFor the sake of the previous argument, however, this hardly matters. If the fraction is 100%, then 30 models of kettles can be supported at 100k/year. This is an order of magnitude argument, not a precise census.