My latest gadget.

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I’m not much of a gadget geek but I’ve recently acquired one that I’m really pleased with. Since the whole Covid ‘work-at-home’ edict, my partner and I have been at home practically every day for the past 9 months. And of course that necessitates lots of cups of tea and coffee. And since the girls have been at home all summer too, that often means hot chocolate, especially now the wintry weather is here. But of course we don’t always want drinks all at the same time. Putting the stove-top kettle on is time-consuming and can’t be very energy efficient. We have a monstrous gas range, and the kettle takes a long time to boil, so it must be using lots of energy and of course every time we open the lid it is losing heat which means it must be using more gas to get the oven up to temperature for cooking. We do have an electric kettle too but then we always fall into the trap of boiling too much water - you don’t want to find you haven’t got enough so you always add a bit extra and then it’s usually too much. And boiling excess water all the time is supposed to be one of the big ways of wasting energy. So when I saw someone selling this gadget I thought I would give it a go. I’m not sure I would have paid full price for it, since I’d never even heard of it before, but I read up about it and it seemed like a good idea so I bought this one second-hand for about a quarter of the price of a new one. Having tried it though I think it would be worth full price. Basically it acts a bit like an electric kettle, but it has a water reservoir separate from the actual boiling part, so each time you press the button it only boils exactly one mug full (250 mL I think) of water. And it does it in super-quick time, about 30 seconds. And it has a cool blue light as well when it’s in action (so you know if you accidentally start it). Now we don’t need to worry about wasting so much energy. And my partner can nip out of one of his online meetings, brew up a cup of tea and be back again before anyone has noticed! And the girls are keen to make us (and themselves) drinks because they like the blue light. And I don’t have to worry that they need to lift a heavy kettle of boiling water. We’ve had it a couple of months now and I really like it. The only snag is if you want a larger or smaller amount of water for whatever reason - then it’s either back to the kettle, or use a jug to collect the water and then dispense it - for two small hot chocolates, for example. And no plumbing required. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2020.