Nothing wrong with our wall mounted unit at work. It’s just fine.
Steve, I understand your pain. My kettle at home is similarly abysmal. It replaced the wonderful if ugly plastic thingy because the kabbess (a champion for style over substance in design if ever there was one) decided that our new one looks better.
I’ll tell you what it looks like. As with most of the kabbess’ tastes, it looks old-fashioned. It looks like an old-fashioned kettle.
Want to know what this means? It means being made out of stainless steel for a start. Yeowch indeed. But that’s the least of its problems. Oh yes - it gets worse.
Because this looks like one of those whistling kettles that you put on top of hobs. It is squat. And it has a handle that reaches over the top of the kettle. And you can only put water into it by taking the lid off - the lid that runs directly under the handle. So if the kettle has just been used, you almost ensure serious scalding by refilling it. It doesn’t help that the centre of balance is such that the only place to hold it is right over the lid.
The whole set up is ridiculous. It also features an under-the-kettle element that is almost guaranteed to fill with water and an on/off switch with a tendency to flick off at annoying moments.
But hey - it looks good. That’s what’s important, eh folks?
Unfortunately, since my SO is several thousand miles away, “in a sentence” is the only way I get to use “priapism” at the moment …
I’m told that some time-and-motion studies experts found a negative correlation between the number of coffee machines and company morale … the reasoning being, apparently, that when there is only one coffee machine, people cluster around it and socialize and exchange ideas, whereas, if every office has its own coffee machine, people make their own coffee and sit and drink it in sullen solitude. From this, we may safely conclude that time-and-motion studies experts have waaay too much time on their hands …
catsix, better stick to pierogies. Tea made by boiling water in the microwave is like a Primanti Brothers sandwich with the fries on the side.
Steve Wright, I sympathize with your betrayal, but, I regret to report that I too have been betrayed, even by the broader standards involved in dealing with Pittsburghers and other Yanks. From my desk, I can see a nice, friendly water dispense complete with two taps, one coloured red, and one coloured blue. I therefore used my programmer’s inate grasp of logic and assumed that the red tap would dispense hot water. I worked away cheerfully in the certainty that there would eventually come a day when I would get a more than 30 second long break in my day and be able to use that red tap to dispense nice, hot water and enjoy a cup of tea while working out the database modifications my employers want. Alas, it was not to be.
Imagine my shock and horror when that glorious day finally arrived. I fetched my cup from the conference/storage room, carefully unwrapped and put in a tea bag, walked to the cooler, and manipulated the hot tap. Instead of glorious, hot, steamy water gushing from the tap and filling me (or my cup, anyway), a trickle of cool water dribbled out. Despite my hopes, no improvements ensued. While the cooler did indeed technically perform its appointed function, I walked away a trifle unsatisfied and vaguely disappointed. I had to forgo my hot, steamy cup of tea for cold, tea-colored water which I got rid of at the earliest opportunity.
I’m afraid I may have to resort the the desparation tactic of an immersion heater, if the opportunity ever presents itself again.
So, does this kettle at SyphiliticDonkeyRaping Systems leave you with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea? Are you sure the manufacterer isn’t the Nutri-Matic corproation?
We don’t have plastic cups. We have proper mugs, which, actually, are a story in themselves … they’re done in company-branded style, red with white lettering. Somebody spent ages thinking of the right way to brand a SyphiliticDonkeyRaping Systems mug … (That isn’t the company’s real name, by the way, but I’ve used that pseudonym so often, I may have to get T-shirts printed anyway.) They’re mugs, but “cup” is almost a synonym there, and the company’s real name begins with “D” … so, I drink my coffee from a “D-CUP”. How we all laughed. In true SyphiliticDonkeyRaping Systems style, the production of these things was turned over to a bunch of incompetent cheapskates who used an incredibly cheap glaze that cracks and flakes off.
The company also provides branded pads of paper, prominently described as "D-PAD"s. My suggestion, in the same vein of hilarity as the D-CUPs, that these should instead be called "MAXI-PAD"s, was met with Funny Looks. I was only trying to be helpful.
I’m confused. Can’t you just make a big pot of tea and leave it on a hotplate? Or coffee, and use, um, a coffee maker, as coffee is higher in caffienne (and with the right additives, tastes better).
Or - go to vending machine. Insert money. Press button. Recieve the Holy Bottle of Nestea Brisk. Admire the cute li’l snowman on the label. Enjoy the icey cold caffinated goodness.
Or you could just stick a cup in the microwave, like catsix said. Your method sounds a wee bit primitive, to me.
Hot tea is best with BOILING water right from the kettle. Honestly. We drink a lot of hot tea over here. And we don’t really drink iced tea over here at all.
Bite your ground-encrusted tongue! Tea, properly made, is the (Non-Alcoholic) Drink of the Gods. Loose leaves in a pre-warmed teapot, china cups, maybe a small dollop of milk and sugar… mmmmmm…**
Iced tea is for countries that actually have sun and warm weather at some point during the year. And hot tea out of a vending machine is leper’s urine.
**
A decent electric kettle takes less time to heat an equivalent amount of water, and doesn’t heat up the mug handle in the process. OTOH, given the choice between a microwave and an electrified spoon I’d be willing to compromise and use a microwave.
Tea and hot plates really don’t go together. A tea cosy on the pot, if you must, but even then you run the risk of it getting too stewed … Microwaving mugs (especially shoddy D-CUPs) doesn’t seem the best move to me. I understand some people do it. But then I understand some people leave the crusts on their cucumber sandwiches, too…
Another point in the kettle vs. microwave debate: a kettle will quickly boil you up six mugs of tea if you want it. More importantly, the boiling water can be used to fill a teapot, for more civilized tea consumption. I hardly think that we want to see teapots in microwaves.
Those colonists, eh? Bless their little hearts. One day they’ll understand the importance of these things.
The disadvantage of the microwave method is that one may be tempted to use merely hot water, not boiling water. The kettle, he boils the water and stops when the water is at a bubbling boil. The microwave, she heats for the time that you have instructed her to heat. Either you watch her like a hawk until the water in the cup boils up, and be sure to catch her before the water boils over, or you have merely hot water which will give you poor tea.
Some of us have already seen the light, though not nearly enough in Texas judging from the difficulty of finding a full-size teapot. I only use the microwave method when I’m at work and don’t want to take the trouble of making a pot of coffee for me only.
Not me. In fact, even though we’ve got a perfectly good kettle here at work, I think I’m going to go and find a spoon I can bend (not with my mind - one new talent at a time) and an extension cord I can cut up, just because it sounds kind of cool. Hopefully this will increase my “street cred” here in the office…or get me the rest of the afternoon off at least.
