Kettle

Started: 2023-05-17 20:30:45

Submitted: 2023-05-17 21:03:24

Visibility: World-readable

Coffee from home needs an upgrade

In the first weeks of the pandemic, once it became obvious that I was going to be drinking all of my coffee from home for the foreseeable future, I bought a Bonavita one-liter electric teakettle, with a fancy digital control and a fancy gooseneck for pour-over coffee. I used it multiple times a day to heat water for coffee and tea, and the rest of my family used the kettle to make tea. Kiesa's favorite feature was the "hold" feature, which would heat up the water to the desired temperature then maintain it until she remembered the water was ready.

Julian pours water for tea

Julian has acquired a taste for Tazo wild Sweet Orange herbal tea; during the winter he'd often drink at least one cup a day.

Water leaking from the spout of my Bonavita teakettle

By the end of April I noticed that the spout of my teakettle was beginning to leak. I developed a protocol to empty the kettle after every batch of hot water and sit it on a towel in front of its base while to let it dry off between batches. This worked well enough for a couple of weeks while I put off looking for a fix or a replacement, until Thursday afternoon last week when I went to pour water for tea and the gooseneck spout bent up, separating from the base and dumping scalding water on my countertop.

Bonavita teakettle with broken spout

I asked the Internet what it thought about gooseneck electric teakettles and I found opinions, including a comment suggesting that the problem I encountered with my three-year-old teakettle was not uncommon. The Internet liked the Fellow Stagg EKG kettle, which had a minimalistic design that I recognized from the shelves of a kitchen store in downtown Santa Cruz. I wasn't able to get out to buy the kettle until Friday morning; and when I brought it back home and set it up in my home coffee lineup it already looked like it fit perfectly.

Fellow Stagg EKG teakettle in home coffee lineup

I've already integrated my new teakettle into my coffee habits, and Julian figured out how to use it to make tea without my intervention. I have every hope the new kettle will serve me and my family for years to come.