Boiling water taps - any experience?

[Roger Mills]

Our new(ish) kitchen conversion is a long way from the hot cylinder in the airing cupboard, with the result that it takes a long time to get hot water when we run the hot tap. It's not really feasible to retro-fit a pumped circulation loop.

SWMBO fancies a boiling water tap - probably a Quooker jobbie with a dedicated tap and 3 litre insulated container under the sink. This would arguably do away with needing a kettle for boiling water for tea and coffee and for filling saucepans prior to cooking vegetables. Three litres of near boiling water diluted with cold should be enough for the odd hand washing-up session (the dishwasher does 90% of the washing up).

Have any of you got one of these, or something similar? If you put aside the shock of the cost[1] do they do what it says on the tin? Any particular pros and cons you've come across?

The Quooker device apparently has a water filter on the *outlet* side, but some people seem to suggest that in hard water areas (which we are) you also need a filer on the inlet side. Any comments?

[1] At about £700+ there's not a cat-in-hell's chance of making an economic case for one of these. Every time we run the hot tap after a period on non-use, I reckon that we waste about 3 litres of water. We don't do this more than once a day on average - so it would take a hell of a long time in saved (metered) water rates and gas costs to offset the capital cost of one of these things - by which time it would probably have come to the end of its useful life! So it's a question of whether it can be justified in terms of convenience. SWMBO thinks it can and, anyway, she fancies one - so that's that!

[charles]

I can't comment on the device, just on the filter's position. There won't be anything to filter on the input, any lime will be dissolved in the water. It only becomes a problem once the water gets boiled and scale is deposited. you'd need a water softener on the input to avoid this. many people say that affects the taste of the water and you can't make good tea.

[Andrew May]

We tried one in the place where I work. It produced hot water OK. But not near enough to boiling to make tea. Sure, it made tea, but it tasted foul because it had not been made with _boiling_ water. SWMBO may be less fussy or may drink coffee but that was my experience. The one we had probably wasn't a Quooker and probably didn't cost UKP700.

[Muddymike]

My office has one (not Quooker) and its brilliant. I can make perfect tea using it.

Mike

[Jethro_uk]

But it's probably an industrial one - might even run on 3 phase ;). It's hard to see how a piddly little domestic unit can have the same performance.

[Andrew Mawson]

Our is fine - you have to remember that there is perhaps 12-18" of small bore pipe from the tank to the tap exit, so run off that volume first if making tea. The difference is obvious in the running water - you can see when the hotter water arrives.

AWEM

[Peter Parry]

A friend had one (no idea which make) which came with a house they bought. It delivered the water more as a spray than a jet. After a few months is succumbed to the hard water, the cost of a new heater unit was never revealed but mention of it made him whimper.

A short time after the new heater was fitted his niece who was in her early teens was visiting, went to wash a piece of fruit, selected the wrong tap, and was scalded (not dangerously, but it required an immediate hospital visit and some large blisters across her hand together with several weeks to heal).

The tap had a simple "protective" system which required it to be pressed and turned rather than just turned but for children brought up dealing with "anti-child" mechanism on everything it seemed to be natural to press and turn it if it didn't turn first time.

The heater was removed and scrapped.

[Toby]

+1

We have had a Quooker for about 4-5 months now and it is great, we kept the kettle in the cupboard, but have not needed it, not even over Christmas when we had people over.

The water is held at around 110C (pressurised) so the water that comes out the tap is properly boiling - we are in a hard water area and have not put anything in place before it, I will take it apaert to assess scale after we have had it 12 months... Looking at this (silent) Youtube video, it looks east to take apart.

Quooker also now sell a Combi option, where it will dispense hot water through a mixer tap aty 50-65C as well as boiling water from a separate tap - that might suit your needs better, as you can then wash hands etc under a stream of water, which you obviously cant do with the boiling tap!

Toby...

[Alexander Lamaison]

I've no idea how these taps work, but the tea problem may be more complicated than just the temperature. Tea/coffee etc have to be made with recently boiled water in order to taste right. That's because the oxygen is somehow involved in releasing the flavour from the leaves/grinds.

Ever wondered why the back of the pack of tea/coffee insists you must not use re-boiled water? That's why. If the tap stores the water or boils it multiple times, it probably won't make a decent cuppa.

Alex

[Tim+]

But if the water is heated in an unvented pressure vessel, where does the oxygen go?

Tim

[polygonum]

I know I have read/heard/seen this oxygen business numerous times. But has it ever been proved in a scientific manner? That it really is the oxygen - and not, for example, nitrogen? Or something else altogether happening?

At that price, they could fit a small oxygen cylinder as well. :-)

[PeterC]

When water is boiling, regardless of the temperature (e.g. at high altitude) there are no dissolved gasses in it.

[Adam Funk]

There's a wall-mounted near-boiling water dispenser in the kitchen at work, but I've noticed that some people --- tea purists, I guess ;-)

--- use the kettle anyway.

Some of the people from south Asia make their tea in the microwave instead (mixing the milk, water, & tea together before heating the lot up).

[Tim+]

But if it's in a pressure vessel, it won't necessarily be "boiling" at all. It can be superheated over 100C without boiling.

Tim

[polygonum]

In which case, any kettle, which has actually been allowed to bring the water to boiling point, should make awful tea?

[polygonum]

If it has milk in it, I don't care what it was made with. Camel vomit or sheep's urine. :-)

And it can be hard to avoid the sugar being added as well.

[Roger Mills]

Quooker claims that the water in theirs is held under pressure at more than 100 degC - so it *ought* to be ok for tea.

[Roger Mills]

But the Quooker doesn't claim to produce hot water in real time such that it can keep supplying it for ever. It heats up a finite quantity (3 litres) which can be dispensed quickly - more than enough for a large pot of tea. After that, you have to wait for it to heat up again. The element isn't massive - about 1.5kW I believe.

[Roger Mills]

Surely you'd run that off to warm the pot - and then tip it away. The water used for actually making the tea would then be at full temperature.

[Alexander Lamaison]

A few good counterarguments made so I got googling. What it boils down to (seewhatidid) is that, yes, any boiling of the water reduces the dissolved oxygen but that the more you boil it the worse that gets. In other words any boiled water is not ideal, but re-boiled water is worse. Seems legit.

Apparently, real tea afficionados 'watch' the kettle and stop it just before it boils. There's even a special kettle [1] that does it for you. Sounds like a gimmick, but there you go.

[1]