I have had this kettle for a month or two now and I’m a little conflicted. I love the preset temp buttons. I really like that the kettle has glass sides and no plastic that touches the water. For those of you who are concerned about plastics, let me explain this kettle a little further. The sides of the kettle are glass, but the bottom is metal. Where the glass meets the metal, there is a silicone ring that the water comes in contact with. At the top of the spout there is a mesh metal and plastic filter that can be removed, which is how I use it. The lid is plastic and the water heating does create condensation that will drip back into the pot.
The kettle has maximum fill line half way up the kettle. I’m assuming it is so low so the water doesn’t boil over and out. The kettle is a little heavier than the the metal version that I previously had, so I get a little more of a workout from this thing.
The part that I’m a little baffled by and disliking is the way the water smells. In my last Breville kettle, I would have to refill it without rinsing several times to get a mineral smell and taste in my water. With this kettle I’m finding I need to rinse it out almost every time to avoid that smell and I’m not sure what the difference is. I’m still using the same source tap water filtered through a Brita. I have tried rinsing it out with vinegar, but the smell comes right back. I’d suspect it was an issue with the water, but the change happened when I switched kettles. The mineral spot build up has also happened in this kettle and I only ever got it in my old kettle when I traveled with it (something I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing with a glass kettle) and used different water sources. So is it the kettle, or my water? I have no clue! I bought this kettle (and yes, so far it is only sold through Teavana – Breville confirmed) so I’d have an all glass no plastic touching my water kettle, but what good is that if the water still tastes odd? I’m guessing I will give this a little more time and then maybe think about returning it for the metal version I had. So verdict is out, there are both good and bad points to this!
