raven stovetop kettle and tea steeper
Fellow Raven Stovetop Kettle + Tea Steeper. Jonathon Kambouris
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Apply enough heat to water and it will eventually boil, but try toconvince your brain of that while you impatiently loiter in your kitchen, listening for your old kettle to whistle. Your noggin is a timekeeper, and the more you pay attention to each passing second, the longer your suffering seems to last. It would take just 10.16 minutes to boil a gallon of water on an impossible stove with ideal heat transfer, and the wait would still feel like torture. The good news: These vessels were built for maximum efficiency and temperature control, to minimize the pain of waiting for those little bubbles to start rising.

raven stovetop kettle and tea steeper

Jonathon Kambouris

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You can boil any liquid you want in the Fellow Raven Stovetop Kettle + Tea Steeper, but its specialty is a perfect cup of tea. This pot has an integrated metal filter inside for steeping. The silicone top has a built-in thermometer with markings to indicate the ideal temperature range for your brew. Try 170°F for green tea, or the full 212°F for an herbal mix. Plus, the copper finish will only get better-looking as it ages.

CAPACITY: 34 ounces

HEAT SOURCE: Stovetop

PRICE: $100

Cuisinart PerfecTemp

Jonathon Kambouris

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A proper cuppa requires thermal precision. Measure your water level in the Cuisinart PerfecTemp through its lit window, then let the 1,500 watts flowing into the base’s metal heating element do their thang. Six presets guide you to the right temperature for your drink. White tea? 185°F. French-press coffee? 200 flat. It’ll even keep the water at that set point for up to 30 minutes, all from the comfort of your desk.

CAPACITY: 57 ounces

HEAT SOURCE: Electric

PRICE: $100

Jetboil MiniMo

Jonathon Kambouris

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Look, sometimes you just need to boil 16 ounces of water in two minutes and fifteen seconds in below-freezing temperatures. The Jetboil MiniMo understands. A valve dishes out a carefully tuned fuel mixture of propane and isobutane to speed heating. The whole package fits inside a 5-by-6-inch cup for transport. Use it to cook some cowboy beans, and you’ll appreciate the shallow spoon angle from the wide cup.

CAPACITY: 32 ounces

HEAT SOURCE: Fuel tank

PRICE: $135

This article was originally published in the September/October 2017 Mysteries of Time and Space issue of Popular Science.

Sara Chodosh
Sara Chodosh

Sara Chodosh was an editor at Popular Science for more than 5 years, where she worked her way up from editorial assistant to associate science editor. In that time she slowly took over running the Charted section of the now-defunct print magazine. Her love of graphics eventually led to her current job as a graphics editor at the New York Times. Contact the author here.