• Nath@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    It’s because the USA power standards are not suitable for kettle life. The 110 voltage on their power means it takes ages to come to the boil. The idea of putting a few cups of water into a kettle, pushing a button and having boiling water inside a minute does not exist.

    That’s why these tabletop things are useful: yes they take ages to initially boil, then they maintain that temperature. 110 volts is fine for that task.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      1 year ago

      There are 240v outlets in the USA, but they’re usually only used for things with heavy power draw (clothes dryers, EV chargers, electric hot water heaters, etc). Some areas have 208v instead of 240v though.

      But yeah, boiling water is slow in the USA and a lot of people do it in the microwave (whereas I never saw anyone ever do that in Australia). We’ve got a Breville espresso machine that has instant hot water, which is useful for some of the use cases we’d use a kettle for.