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.
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