Today I want to talk about kettles and finding the perfect kettle for you. With me being British, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I love a good cup of tea.
That’ll be an English Breakfast with two spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of milk ase.
However, making that perfect tea isn’t always easy if you have a disability. Or any hot drink for that matter… But a few years ago, I struggled to open the lid any kettle really, particularly if I was refilling a freshly boiled one.
What was the issue with the kettle?
There were many things that made it hard for me to use the kettle:
- The weight of the kettle
- The stiffness of the lid
- The heat from the lid
My cerebral palsy makes it hard for me to carry heavy items. The only issue is, that what my body deems heavy seems to be like feather light to everyone else. That four pints of milk you began to pour into your coffee or tea this morning, or that bag of potatoes you bought from the store last week, I probably wouldn’t be able to carry those. I struggle with a bag full of a pack of apples and toilet roll… so… yep, heavy to me is a different meaning than it does for most people.
My body would decide if it can lift that. If the answer is yes, it’ll be a yes… but we will use all or at least most of your strength to do it.
The same used to apply to the kettle. I’d fill it up to four cups and It would take some strength to put it back on its ring. But not anymore.
How did we solve the Kettle issue?
It was my family’s idea really. Buy a new kettle and see if it was different. So, we went shopping and began to look at the kettles in places like Currys.
It’s easier than looking online, because most places have displays of the kettles out, on shelves, for you to look at. So this allowed us to test the weight of the kettles. Many of them were heavy without water, so we knew those ones wouldn’t help at all.
But we found some light ones. Next we needed to test the stiffness of the lid. What we found is that any kettle without a button was hard to open but the button powered ones were relatively easy, depending on the button.
Lots of them had buttons, but not all the buttons opened far; some only opened an inch, others all the way.
The result
At the time, the perfect one was a Breville kettle. I happily brewed some tea, hot chocolate and coffee with it.
The benefit of looking at the kettles in store meant that I could test each kettle individually, without having to buy the item first, saving me both money and time.
I am now able to fill the kettle up to six cups (which I rarely do) before I start feeling the weight of it. So that’s great. And all it costed me was the money I was going to spend on the kettle in the first place. I wish more stores displayed various kinds of items. Anyway…
Now I am preparing to go to university for the last time. Student halls give you a kettle, but I don’t know how practical their kettle will be for me to be able to use it. In the past, it has never been practical so I always bought the one for Currys with me. We bought two, one for home and one for when I started uni for the first time. However, one of the switches broke on one of the kettles.
So, I have bought another kettle from Amazon to use in my students’ hall this year. The display in Currys I went to a few years ago allowed me to know what kind of kettle I needed so that if I needed to get it offline, I could look at the specs and decide if it is suitable.
Now that my old kettle is a few years old, this one is better but I can still use both well. It means that I no longer have to worry about burning myself when I use the kettle because the lid opens for me, it is light for me to carry and I am able to pour fine. So I am able to have as much tea as possible. It’s good to be British… Well, aside from Brexit.
More Brewing Advice
My nan has arthritis and has similar struggles to me. However, while I am able to pour the kettle, my nan finds this hard. One Christmas, a family member showed her a gadget on Amazon called a Kettle Tipper and she bought one. Knowing that I struggle with similar issues, my nan showed it me and I believe it’s a really cool device.
It works by placing the kettle on to the tipper platform and you adjust the plate so it is able to pour into the cup. I haven’t actually used it, but I assume there will be a trial and error until you are used to the distance from the kettle and the cup.
She also told me that she found it easier to fill the kettle up using a jug. This allowed her to keep the kettle on the device. Since then, my nan and I have been able to brew our favourite hot drinks and dunk in some lovely Rich Tea biscuits.
you go
I hope you find this post useful. If you have used my nan’s device, please let me know who you have found it in comments as it may help some readers who struggle to pou. Thanks for reading.
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~Shannon~