Well, if you want me to drink it anyways.
I’m of the firm belief (however misguided) that water for my hot cocoa or tea (I don’t drink coffee) must be heated by boiling - preferrably in a kettle - to taste right.
Nuked water doesn’t even stir the same.
My SO insists that microwaving the water is faster and “just the same dammit, so why can’t I just heat it that way”, but no - I feel firmly on this.
Any ideas on why that water is different, or is it that I’m just a hot-water stickler?
Hot water is hot water. Unless it’s picking up the flavor of something in the kettle, it’s the same either way.
Have you ever done a blind taste test? It’s probably just in your head.
I was also going to guess that the water is picking up flavor from the kettle too.
I think that you should run a Pepsi Challenge style taste test and see if you really can tell the difference and report back with the results.
Haj
And note that the test needs to be “double blind” - neither you nor the person presenting you with the two different cups of boiling water should know how they reached the boiling point.
You are crazy in the head. There is no difference whatsoever.
Or - wait! Did you forget to make sure your tinfoil hat was on securely before you tried the nuked water?!?!
Clearly the solution is to put the kettle full of water in the microwave.
But first, make sure your fire extinguishers are full.
I suspect it’s due to air being forced out of the water in the microwave - which is counteracted in the kettle by the fairly violent motion during the last few seconds of boiling.
This is my most likely culprit.
Following that, I’m going to point out that in traditional heating in a kettle, the water has the hottest point that it is being exposed to is at the bottom of the volume of water, which is the point that the coolest water in the volume will be moving towards because of density changing as a function of temperature. In nuked water, the hottest point in volume is supposed to be the center of the volume, which may result in uneven and unequal heating. Of course, those of us who use the ‘nuke it til it glows’ method of microwave heating won’t really notice a difference, since after enough time the ineffeciency of the thermal mixing of the water is compensated by the extra energy being added to the volume of water. 
I somewhat agree with the OP.
But I think it has something to do with the bubbles and the sound of boiling water when you pour into a cup.
Microwaved water just looks so bland and dead. It doesn’t move.
Yup, I definitely have to use kettle-boiled water. It just feels and tastes so much more alive.
I’m fairly certain that I’ve boiled water in a microwave oven. I personally don’t notice a difference between the two, but I only use it for hot chocolate.
I agree with the OP. Somehow water boiled in a microwave just isn’t quite “right” for tea. (I also don’t drink coffee.) Now, it might be because I had an old microwave. I haven’t tried with the new one. Possibly some experimentation is in order.
I’m just always worried about water boiled in the microwave exploding on me.
Sometimes nukes water can become superheated, which may drive out more disolved O2 which could effect taste. Then again it may heat up water faster and leave more dissolved O2 in the water.
They did this on mythbusters. They could only get the water to explode with, I believe" deionized water. Nothing happened with tap water.
And if you are still worried, even after Snarky_Kong’s quip, then when you boil water, insert a wooden skewer or plastic spoon. If you give the water a nucleation point, then it will actually boil in the microwave, and not explode when moved.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! Water that’s truly brought to a boil in a microwave is essentially the same as water boiled in a kettle. But in a microwave, it’s a lot easier to get just a small part of the water boiling hot while the rest is much cooler, so that when you use it to make tea or cocoa, once you mix and stir, the effective temperature is a lot lower than when you’re using water heated in a kettle. As OtakuLoki suggests, nuking the water for a while after it’s begun to boil will help. Probably even better would be to open the microwave and stir the water vigorously a time or two during the cooking process, to distribute the heat more evenly.
Excellent. That explains it.
And can I ask where the energy efficiency of a kettle is failing, if a 1.5KW kettle can ever be out-performed by an 800W microwave?
If the water is nuked in a glazed ceramic mug, I find it can take on a chemical taste. I don’t know if it’s the fact that ceramic is porous and therefore absorbs things (including dishwashing soap) that leach back into the water, or if it’s the glazing itself, but it’s there. There’s also an omnipresent layer of scummy foam on the top of tea made in water that’s been nuked in a ceramic mug.
These issues don’t exist if the water is nuked in, for example, a glass measuring cup, then transferred to the mug.
But when a good electric kettle can produce have enough boiling water for an entire pot of tea in nearly the same amount of time as you can get a properly heated mug of water from a microwave, why use the microwave?
Actually I did once have superheated water explode on me. I didn’t get burned but it boiled off so rapidally that more then 1/2 the water left the mug with most ending up on the microwave turn tray when I tryed to remove the mug.
And is was not special water unless the local water company started de-ionizing it.