Bomb.org.uk
29.06.2009 Why do we boil water for tea?
Why is it that a kettle boils water? Experts suggest that the perfect temperature for a cup of tea should be between 60 and 65 degrees Celsius, any hotter and the leaves become scalded and lose their flavour. Despite this, kettle manufacturers continue to create devices that boil the water to well over a hundred degrees.
If a kettle were to be produced that only heated the water to 65 degrees, we would get better tea, faster and with an energy reduction of around 40%. Surely that makes sense especially with tea consumption being as high as it is in the UK!
Naturally, a kettle of this type would need a dial to allow for hotter water on those rare occasions where the water is needed for something other than tea…
Time for some rough science… 
The average Brit drinks around 5 cups of tea per day (according to the UK Tea Council and the total population in the UK is around 61 million people. That means the UK consumes around 366 million cups of tea per day. A quick google indicates to that it costs around £0.02 to boil a kettle at current market rates. That works out at a national cost of £732,0000 per day or £2671,800,000 per year spent on boiling kettles in the UK.
If we reduce this figure by the 40% that would equate to a national saving per year of around £1068,720,000 and £14.60 for each person in the country. Naturally, this assumes that everyone makes their own cups of tea, doesn’t drink cold drinks and always consumes the national average number of cups per day (I did say it was rough science!).
That’s more money than I can imagine in my head, a massive saving and a huge improvement on national energy consumption levels.
Whoa… this could possibly be the most boring thing I’ve ever posted on my blog!
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