My Family’s Goldilocks Attempt to Find a "Just Right" Electric Kettle
My family's exacting specifications for this simple household item drove me to search for the one that could satisfy all of their desires.
My family's exacting specifications for this simple household item drove me to search for the one that could satisfy all of their desires.
The invention of the electric kettle is one of humankind’s most impressive. For as simple as it seems, water that heats up within minutes without turning on the stove is an incredible feat, one underlined after you’ve watched a single episode of Alone.
And yet in my household, all electric kettles aren’t alike. I thought they were but, according to my sister and partner, there were issues. To satisfy their needs, we have acquired not one, not two, but three, in an attempt to find the perfect fit. It’s been a long, arduous journey to get here, full of many rigorous tests. Here, I’ll provide a full accounting of what it takes to please the pickiest of consumers, the kind of people who deep dive on obscure Reddit threads and love to debate the merits of a Wirecutter review (i.e. demons).
Balmuda
Balmuda The Kettle
Easy to use and light to handle, BALMUDA The Kettle is the perfect size for common kitchen needs. It holds just enough water for three standard cups of coffee — or two large mugs. Unit dimensions: W 10.6 in. × D 5.6 in. × H 7.6 in. Rated capacity: 0.6 L (20 fl oz) Unit weight: Approx. 2 lbs
Balmuda’s aptly named The Kettle was sent as a tester to my coworker in May of 2023, and she passed it along as she did not have use for it. You’d think a person wouldn’t look a free electric kettle—retailing at $149—in the mouth, as the saying famously goes. Particularly if that person—or people—hadn’t had an electric kettle before, and were boiling water in a regular pot with a lid.
But soon, the complaints came rolling in. My living companions in our shared home in Upstate New York took issue with the gooseneck, claiming that it "poured slowly." "I don’t want a slow flow," my sister said. This is by design: the brand argues the narrowness allows a "precise flow rate…[which] lets you direct the flow exactly where you want it to go."
Slow flow or not, it is award-winning, and the design is clearly intended to allow for use in pourover coffee, as well as other beverages. It comes in black and white, and is slightly smaller than other kettles, holding 0.6 liters of water, which the brand claims helps with a speedy heating time. It has a flip switch, and a bulb at the end of the handle lights up to show it’s on, clicking off when it’s finished boiling. In my test, it took a minute and 40 seconds to boil one cup of water. Time worth waiting, I’d say.
Bodum
Bodum Gooseneck Electric Water Kettle
Pour over coffee is simple to brew, but the results can be exquisite – as long as you have the right equipment. With its slim, elegant spout and powerful boil, the BISTRO electric gooseneck kettle is a key gadget for at-home baristas. Designed for precision pouring, this chic appliance gives you optimum control over your water flow. By pouring hot water in slow circles over your ground coffee beans, you’ll get a cup of joe that’s pure, balanced, and bursting with flavor and aroma. As an added bonus, our electric gooseneck kettle has an ergonomic handle that makes pouring a pleasure, while its powerful rapid boil ensures it’s as efficient as it is eye-catching. This is pour over, perfected.
Bodum has many different kettles available for purchase; without consulting the rest of the family, my partner chose the BISTRO Gooseneck Electric water kettle in black in April of 2024 for our place in the city, almost exactly a year after acquiring the Balmuda. Had communication lines been more open, or deeper analysis of likes and dislikes been done, he would have realized that he and my sister actually do not favor the gooseneck style.
Design and style wise, the Bodum is very very similar to the Balmuda—but, at $65.99, half the cost. It functions almost identically too; a cup of water took a minute and 45 seconds to boil. It was also designed for use with coffee, hence its "precision pouring," and has a switch, which doubles as the indicator light that clicks off when your water has boiled. It holds almost double the water the Balmuda does. If you’re interested in roughly the same look and function of the former, but without its cost, the Bodum is for you.
Aarke
Aarke Kettle
Aarke Kettle Matte Black is an electric temperature control kettle with multiple temperature settings, ranging from 104° to 212° F, and a convenient LED cool-down indicator. Crafted in stainless steel with a heat-safe handle, our temperature control kettle offers a unique combination of functionality, design and engineering. If your water has a lot of limescale, use the Kettle with our Purifier water filter pitchers and forget about regular kettle limescale cleanups.
Months passed. And then the complaints about the gooseneck design began to surface. I resolved to stop the yammering of my cohort about the "slow pour" of the gooseneck, and find some way to fix the matter. Enter: Aarke, the maker of our—and many others’—favorite seltzer machine. The company had released their own Kettle, and offered to send me a tester.
If the kettles we had used before were [if you know anything about cars, which I don’t, think of a car that is cute and totally works but not fancy really], the Aarke is [think of a car that is chic]. At $250, it heats water from a range of temperatures, if that’s something you desire and need. (It’s not quite clear to me that it is.) It’s also the largest, holding 1.2 liters of water, and comes in the company’s by now signature stainless steel, and matte black. (For design consistency’s sake, since all our other kettles were matte black, that’s what I chose here too.)
It has a flip switch on the bottom, but the speed at which it boiled water was notably faster than the other two models—an impressive 55 seconds at 170 degrees. And, most importantly, it has a regular spout for "perfect pouring."
Perhaps due to the Kettle’s more advanced features, my partner said he was "slightly confused about how it works" but that "‘3 minutes of reading’ would clear up the ‘slightly confused’ so that’s not really a knock against it." Regardless, both he and my sister agreed that it is "1000% best for pouring," and since that was what sent me down the rabbit hole to begin with, that is what we will take away from this: that people are insane, but that in a capitalist society, there is a lid for every pot. Or an electric kettle for every counter.
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