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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Flightless Bird: Electric Kettles

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.668.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to discover why America is yet to fully embrace the electric kettle. Why does America insist on the stovetop kettle when it could be boiling its water so much faster? To find out, David talks to Bruce Richardson, a tea master who founded Elmwood Inn Fine Teas in Kentucky, and wrote a book called “The New Tea Companion.” Bruce is a man obsessed with the correct boiling point of water, whose worst enemy is the microwave. Richardson teaches David about the shady events of 1773, in which a bunch of costumed protestors threw British tea into the ocean in a case of tea treason. Could these events still be felt today in America’s rejection of the British invention of the electric kettle? Or is it a voltage issue? Tony Gebely, author of “The Philosophy of Tea: A User's Guide” has some of his own theories - theories which lead the creator of America’s premiere electric kettle brand, Fellow. Jake Miller prefers his boiling water on coffee, not tea - and he argues (somewhat in jest) that the electric kettle could have a massive impact on America’s GDP.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm David Farrier in New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure

0:05.1

out what makes this country tick.

0:07.5

Now one of the joys of living in America is getting used to all the things you do slightly

0:11.6

differently.

0:12.6

So far in flightless bird, I've learned about the importance of tipping, using a leaf

0:16.3

blower, getting circumcised and enjoying baseball.

0:20.2

All things that never entered my life back in New Zealand.

0:23.0

It can be disorientating to encounter so many new ways to do things.

0:28.2

And the simplest of things can be different, like boiling some hot water.

0:32.9

Here in America, it starts slowly and quietly.

0:37.2

A hot stove heating the water inside a kettle until it finally unleashes its ear piercing

0:42.8

scream.

0:45.4

Since I've been here, I've discovered that America loves keeping it traditional when

0:49.1

it comes to boiling water, placing a kettle over the embrace of a hot flame.

0:54.9

How do I feel about this?

0:56.8

To be honest, I feel a bit like that kettle, a scream building in my throat until it finally

1:02.3

unleashes an all out rage.

1:05.6

Why?

1:06.8

Because in New Zealand, we have the electric kettle.

1:09.8

Sitting on the bench top, it boils our water in a matter of minutes.

1:14.1

And instead of the ear piercing scream announcing boiling point, the electric kettle just turns

1:18.7

itself off.

...

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