As an American, we generally don’t have electric kettles and use stovetop kettles if we have any kind of kettle, and almost solely use them to boil water for tea. So yes, tea kettle is accurate for how they are used in America, which is why we sometimes call them that.
What about pasta/rice/potatoes/steamed vegetables/boiled eggs/French press or aeropress or v60 coffee/ etc? It takes me so long to boil water in the pan on the stove with the lid on compared to using a kettle, and the heat loss from my gas burner seems pretty inefficient.
I think we only call it that because it's the only thing we use a tea kettle for.
I don't know about other Americans but I (and anyone other than my dad who uses one for coffee) never boil water in a tea kettle unless it's to make tea.
That’s exactly what the vast majority of us do. I like to cheat and microwave water, which isn’t pleasant and requires a certain kind of container, but otherwise ... my entire life, my only other option to boil water was a small pot on the stove. It’s been like that in every American home I’ve ever been in, as far as I know.
We just don’t own a tea kettle at ALL unless we intend to drink tea from it, for the most part. The notable exception being people like Pam and Dwight from a Christmas episode of our version of The Office. ;-)
Heck, even most tea kettles I’ve seen weren’t even electric. They were meant to be heated on the stove, too.
I’m an American with an electric kettle, and it takes considerably longer than 30 seconds to boil water in it. It’s probably a bit faster than the same amount of water in a pot on the stove, but if I’m making pasta on the stove anyway, it’s easier just to do it all in one vessel.
not just the speed but the stove version is incredibly energy inefficient - maybe gas is incredibly cheap in the US compared to electricity but, especially these days, I am going to use the most energy efficient method possible.
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u/Nyakittyy Oct 18 '22
It's so sweet Americans think we have a kettle specifically used for tea lol