A question about "kettles"

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john62
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by john62 »

Happy-N-Skirts,
When did you come to Australia ? In 2018 the country is full of coffee, coffee shops everywhere and supermarkets have shelves of coffee beans, ground coffee and instant coffee.

John
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by pelmut »

I carry a diesel stove in the van for boiling a kettle to make tea.  Once it is running it is perfectly clean and odourless, but it often produces a burst of yellow flame and a few curls of black oily smoke during start-up, so I always have to use it outside the van.  

Last year on the way back from holiday I pulled into a layby and set up the stove on a stone slab opposite a large articulated lorry with Polish registration plates.  I fired up the stove, coaxed it into blue-flame mode and put the kettle on ready for tea.  ...then it ran out of fuel, so I heaved the 5-gallon jerrycan of diesel out of the van, staggered to the stove with it and set up a spout and a refilling funnel.  With the stove refilled, I went through the starting ritual again, this time with a slightly larger and smokier fireball than before - and eventually put the kettle back on.

All this time I was aware that the driver of the Polish lorry was watching me with interest from his cab; so when the tea was finally made, I turned and smiled at him and raised my hard-earned cup in a cheery gesture.  He smiled back, reached down inside the cab and gestured back with an electric kettle !
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shadowfax
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by shadowfax »

pelmut wrote:I carry a diesel stove in the van for boiling a kettle to make tea.  Once it is running it is perfectly clean and odourless, but it often produces a burst of yellow flame and a few curls of black oily smoke during start-up, so I always have to use it outside the van.  

Last year on the way back from holiday I pulled into a layby and set up the stove on a stone slab opposite a large articulated lorry with Polish registration plates.  I fired up the stove, coaxed it into blue-flame mode and put the kettle on ready for tea.  ...then it ran out of fuel, so I heaved the 5-gallon jerrycan of diesel out of the van, staggered to the stove with it and set up a spout and a refilling funnel.  With the stove refilled, I went through the starting ritual again, this time with a slightly larger and smokier fireball than before - and eventually put the kettle back on.

All this time I was aware that the driver of the Polish lorry was watching me with interest from his cab; so when the tea was finally made, I turned and smiled at him and raised my hard-earned cup in a cheery gesture.  He smiled back, reached down inside the cab and gestured back with an electric kettle !
LOL :) :) :) Great story.
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by Gusto10 »

beachlion wrote:On cold days some naughty Dutch may even spike their coffee with alcohol....
It's known as Irish coffee
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by Gusto10 »

shadowfax wrote: AFAIK The Dutch take their tea with lemon but not milk. Mind you, their tea will have been blended so that it tastes right with lemon.
The lemon is used to decrease the tea stain in the cups or mugs used.
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shadowfax
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by shadowfax »

Gusto10 wrote:
shadowfax wrote: AFAIK The Dutch take their tea with lemon but not milk. Mind you, their tea will have been blended so that it tastes right with lemon.
The lemon is used to decrease the tea stain in the cups or mugs used.
Lemon contains Citric Acid so that does seem possible. Thanks.
Last edited by shadowfax on Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
pelmut
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by pelmut »

shadowfax wrote:Lemon contains Acetic Acid so that does seem possible. Thanks.
Citric Acid?
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lazerr
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by lazerr »

We have an electric kettle. It is very handy, and it makes it very easy to use the French Press for coffee.

I, also, never heard of such a thing until my sister showed me hers. Only then did I learn that everyone in my family had one except for me!

:)
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by beachlion »

Gusto10 wrote:
beachlion wrote:On cold days some naughty Dutch may even spike their coffee with alcohol....
It's known as Irish coffee
As far as I know is Irish coffee made with coffee, whisky and cream. According to folklore, it was invented to warm up the passengers of the trans-Atlantic flights by Pan Am Clippers in the late 1930s when they landed at Shannon, Ireland. The Dutch originally used vieux, the Dutch version of cognac (brandy) but other spirits were used when the world of alcohol opened to the Dutch when the economy improved in the 60s.
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shadowfax
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by shadowfax »

pelmut wrote:
shadowfax wrote:Lemon contains Acetic Acid so that does seem possible. Thanks.
Citric Acid?
You're right! Oops! :roll:
I've corrected the mistake in my original post. :wink: :)
Ralph
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by Ralph »

I'm in the near region of 60 so I certainly have owned and used electric (and stovetop) kettles back in the day. For the past 20 years... not so much, for myself or my friends. Demographically, I'm in the rural midwest USA.

First off, I know very few people who drink tea at all. Of those who do, it's common to just heat up a single serving of water in the microwave. For everyone else, there's coffee.

Among the coffee drinkers...
  • Perhaps 25% use one of those complicated "pod" systems (e.g. Keurig) where you have to buy specially made packets of coffee that fit into a machine whose inner functions are a complete mystery to me. Witchcraft may be involved.
  • Perhaps 70% use a basic self-contained coffee maker (e.g. Mr. Coffee) that heats up water in a reservoir and automatically pipes it into a filter full of coffee grounds (usually pre-ground, although I have one friend who grinds his own) and drips into a carafe at the bottom.
  • Then there's the lazy set, including myself, who boil a (measuring) cup of water in the microwave and pour it into a (drinking) cup of instant coffee without regards to taste or quality, as long as the caffeine can raise the dead.
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by Kirbstone »

In countries where tea is seldom or never drunk they don't seem to have any use for kettles. Sharing an apartment with two other couples for a couple of weeks' skiing in Andermatt, Switzerland there was no kettle and when asked, the landlady hadn't heard of such a device !!

Tom
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by weeladdie18 »

I make my tea using three different methods..I always make two mugs of tea for myself...drink one mug warm and forget to drink the second and have a nice refreshing cold tea half an hour later ....Tend to use a tea bag and move it from one cup to the second.
Plenty of milk added just before drinking :........no sugar.

Method one...Heat a mug of cold water in the microwave for one minute ....then add teabag.

Method two ..use a small electric kettle with boiling temperature controlled by a thermostat.

Method 3.. Use an outdoor Swedish meths stove with a two mug size kettle. the ring of flame is produced by the vapourised meths in the reservoir.
I have used this system on the Kitchen floor or on the open deck of a boat.....this is the only system I use which is likely to boil the kettle dry.

The small kettle is like something out of a kiddies tea set.......this meths stove will stay alight in a high wind

When I was a boy, back in the last centuary, we used to go out on the hay waggon with cold milky tea in a square H.P. brown sauce bottle.
We still use these tea bottles on the boats. The bottle lays on its side ,and will not roll around the deck.

Cold milky tea ,a cool refreshing drink. Tea bottles or thermos flasks were always carried in a an old gas mask holding bag.............Rod
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by weeladdie18 »

Talking about the supply of heat for the cold water in the kettle ............My father was out there when they needed them...

Boiling up the kettle of water on the hot engine block of a Scammell Pioneer or a Diamond T .

the standard cooker was a 5 gallon jerry Can split vertically. ...Laid on its side and filled with desert sand . Petrol was then poured into the sand.
As the surface vapour burned the petrol deeper in the sand evapourated .

Sargent Major's tea was made with enough sugar to allow the spoon to stand up by itself in the mug.

The mug was probably made from a French wine bottle ...half filled with gearbox oil . A hot poker driven into the bottle split the glass to give
the rim height at the height of the oil level.

Anyone coming round for lunch ? ........... Fresh mackerel boiled in seawater like an egg......three and a half minutes.....................
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Re: A question about "kettles"

Post by Big and Bashful »

I don't think I have ever tried instant tea, but I must admit I am no conno, conos, conooo, expert. My house only has one type of tea, the Tetley tea bag. The water has GOT to be boiling, recently boiled is not good enough, it must be boiling as I pick my kettle up. Normally brewed until it looks brewed, maybe a couple of minutes. I like sugar in it but can tolerate tea without it if necessary, I also tend to have milk, but literally only a few drops, I can't stand it if it tastes milky.
Coffee, different story, Like it freshly filtered, black and unsweetened if it is a good coffee, instant needs sugar and a bit of milk. For coffee I never use boiling water because it scalds the coffee, I find the same scalded flavour spoils coffee that has been perculated at.

So that's me, an Englishman abroad (in Scotland) sitting in a skirt and trying not to give in to the lure of a bottle of wine!
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