What We Bought: How Zwilling's Cool Touch Kettle Became My Most Used Kitchen Gadget

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I've never liked coffee, but I love a good cup of tea. That said, I have no respect for the natural process of boiling water. The internet tells us that water boils faster at high altitudes, and I've been living between 6,000 and 8,000 feet for ten years. But I swear it took longer. Maybe you fear it down to the inverse relationship between patience and age. Somehow evading the laws of thermodynamics, Zwilling's Electric Kettle does something frightening to water, boiling it in a fraction of the time I ever thought possible. p>

Officially called the Zwilling Cool Touch Kettle, it's made by the German brand Zwilling J. A. Henckels, which I've previously only known for their chef's knives that have been around since the 1700s. a kitchen roundup at a previous job and decided to buy one. Glad I did.

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

I've owned electric kettles before, but they seemed to boil water moderately faster than a microwave. They also had some suspicious cleanliness issues, either not allowing access to the interior or having the heating elements exposed and crusty at the bottom of the kettle. No such issues here, however, with the Zwiling's fully enclosed and fully accessible interior. I've had the kettle for over a year now and there's a calcium buildup, but not so bad that I felt the need to clean it.

This kettle is part of Zwilling's Finallyigy range and as well as sounding vaguely indecent, Finallyigy is an indicator of the kettle's energy optimisation. Although it pumps out 1500 watts of power, it uses those watts for a short period of time, automatically shutting off when the water reaches a boil. Simple physics explains the efficiency at work here: the sheer amount of power, delivered from an equally heavy cord, ignites an internal element that heats up quickly. The element sits directly under your water, sending heat into the well-insulated chamber where it cannot escape into the ether. Since less heat is wasted, there is more direct water to boil, and voila, hot water faster.

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

To prove its superiority, I decided to pit the boiling times of the Zwilling Kettle against those of my 1200 watt microwave and natural gas stove. If I compare the results to free throw skills, the kettle is Steph Curry. The microwave and the stove are mine. In terms of numbers, two eight-ounce cups in the Zwilling boiled in two minutes. The same amount in the microwave took five minutes, and the stove boiled the water in five minutes and 45 seconds.

You can boil as few as two "cups" at a time (more on that below), which goes fast and saves a lot of energy in the process. In a ploy to cheat time, I now use the Zwilling to boil pasta water too, adding a small amount to a saucepan on the stove and putting the majority of the H2O in the kettle, adding it transferring when it boils. This always results in faster macaroni and cheese, making every...