Hi H-B, may I ask a quick question, please?

Could anyone advise roughly what proportion of U.S. and/or Canadian homes own a (tea) kettle, either electric or stovetop?

I undestand they aren't so much of thing in North America as they are in, say, Europe?


Thanks for any info
Phil

Phil_P wrote: Could anyone advise roughly what proportion of U.S. and/or Canadian homes own a (tea) kettle, either electric or stovetop?

I've got no way to estimate the proportion of US (I'm in the US) homes have kettles. I think we've always had at least a stovetop kettle. My wife likes tea. We also have a habit of drinking chai tea every night so our kettle gets used just about every day. A few years ago we discovered the wonder of the electric kettle...so much better!

Phil_P wrote:<snip>I undestand they aren't so much of thing in North America as they are in, say, Europe?

I hazard a guess that nearly everyone in North America has a kettle in their home. Years ago (decades really), I noticed that more stove top ones were in use by US Americans, while Canadians tended to have more electric ones. I've no idea if this still holds true, but I suspect that most of us have electric ones now. My folks had electric kettles for as long as I can remember (I'm in my 70s). At our cottage, even though we had electricity, we had stove top ones, as old things tended to be relegated to cottages.

We are obsessed with hot tea and coffee. 4 kettles: old stovetop kettle, our main workhorse - an electric gooseneck and a small portable one for road trips plus a little tea pot with the strainer for making the most delicious cups

It looks like it has increased significantly over the last decade

(Or, you take a pessimistic view of things and decide that the longevity had taken a dive)

A rough guess might assume a 5-year lifespan, so on the order of 25 million "not dead yet" kettles, 130 million US households, 20% maybe?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/514 ... c-kettles/

We always had a stovetop kettle growing up in California. Somewhere along the line I upgraded to a gooseneck kettle for pour-over and added more electric kettles, but I primarily use a stovetop gooseneck kettle.

My apologies, I misread as I assumed that "almost everyone has at least some kind of kettle."

I can't imagine not having a kettle of some sort, either stovetop or electric. Trying to pour out of a 1 qt/liter saucepan got old quickly, back in my first year out of the home I grew up in. A quick check shows a stovetop kettle in the US at under $10 from a widespread generalist chain (Target).

We have one so there's at least one in North America.

Having gone shopping for a new stove top kettle this past year we were shocked to see how much could be spent on just a non-electric stove top kettle!

We do NOT have an electric kettle. Canadian.

My wife is of British heritage, but only drinks tea occasionally. She typically just takes water from the espresso machine boiler (we do flush it very often/regularly so the boiler water is "fresh", though does sit at boiling+ for long periods sometimes. I have an Elektra A3 and it has been running pretty well 24/7 for 15 years so it is always hot and ready to go. I love having instant boiling water for so many things it get's used often. She does not seem to care if there is any taste impact. I use it for tea, but only when I am sick for herbal teas..,for some reason, I cannot drink coffee when I have a cold. If the water is not good tasting, I would not know anyways.

We have a gas range and and I can bring a small saucepan of water to boil very quickly using that...even when the power is out!

I still have my first or second electric kettle, a Russel Hobbs I've had for likely close to 30 years, and now I have 4 others, but I think I was a very early adopter in the US. But electric kettles are becoming much more popular over the past 10 years. There's been a whole shelf dedicated to them at Bed Bath and Beyond for a number of years. My mom had a Russel Hobbs before me and hers was old enough it still had an attached cord.