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Breville’s the IQ Kettle

The IQ Kettle by Breville
Five temperature settings
1.8L (2 quart) capacity
MSRP $199.99

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When I moved, I was in the market for a new kettle. This was for a few reasons, the primary one being that the stove top in my new place is glass top and doesn’t evenly heat things unless it has a completely flat bottom (of which the kettle I had access to did not). That and I love drinking tea, and the idea of being able to select a temperature setting that was ideal for whichever tea I was drinking was a concept I could get behind.

I had asked my friends on Facebook to see which kettles they were using – the Breville IQ and a Cuisinart kettle were the ones mentioned, both in comments and in private messages. After reading many reviews, I decided to get the Breville. I ordered mine off of Amazon.ca for less than MRSP with free shipping. This has been, without a doubt, the most expensive item I’ve bought related to my love of tea so far.

First Impressions

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The IQ Kettle comes in a sturdy cardboard box. There’s not a terrible amount of internal packaging – some cardboard forms that hold the kettle and the base in place, along with a manual (in English and French). There’s no styrofoam, which I appreciate from a recycling/green point of view.

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A nice feature of the kettle is that the IQ Kettle has a 1.8L (2 quart) capacity. There are clear indicator windows on both sides that have measurements for either metric or imperial. The minimum amount of water needed to use the kettle is 500mL or 2 cups, the maximum is 1800mL or 8 cups. It has 5 temperature settings: green (175°F), white (185°F), oolong (195°F), French press (200°F), and boil/black tea (212°F). There is a keep warm option, which keeps the water at the temperature for 20 minutes.

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The base plugs into the wall, the outlet has a loop which is apparently meant to make it easier to unplug the kettle. I don’t find it any easier or more difficult to use compared to a regular plug. The IQ Kettle also comes with a removable scale filter – it has a stainless steel filter with a plastic frame. I don’t live in an area with heavy water, so I don’t anticipate any build up on a regular basis to be cleaned off of this.

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First Use

When in use, the outside of the IQ Kettle does get a little hot – the handle remains cool to the touch when the water is being heated. Because of the heat, I would recommend only using the handle when wanting to handle the kettle (don’t use your hand to support the body of the kettle).

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As you can see in an earlier photo, it comes with default English text and temperatures in Fahrenheit. Mine came with a sheet of stickers for French text, since I am in Canada. There were no stickers for temperatures in Celsius. I don’t mind this too much because I often choose temperatures based on the type of tea. There is no option to select your own temperatures, but it does cover a fair number of choices that I don’t think that is too much of an issue.

The IQ Kettle makes three beeping noises when the water is done reaching the desired temperature, and it isn’t too noisy or grating. The buttons light up to the selection and when the water is heating, the Start/Cancel button is red. Otherwise when the kettle is in use, the buttons light up white.

I did test the IQ Kettle to see how long it would take to heat up water. When heating up 750mL (3 cups) of water on the green tea setting, it took 2 minutes and 23 seconds. When heating up the same amount of water on the black tea (boil) setting, it took 3 minutes and 34 seconds.

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A neat feature with the IQ Kettle that I like is the button that opens the lid. I’ve had kettles before where when you push the button, the lid just pops open because it’s held in by a spring. The IQ Kettle lid opens slowly, so there’s no risk of water flying into your face – always a nice plus!

Overall Impression

The Breville IQ Kettle is not the cheapest variable temperature kettle out there on the market. There are a lot of different types of variable temperature kettles – all with different volume capacities and temperature options. I really like the IQ Kettle for ease of use, and it covers the temperatures that I use most frequently, so it fits the needs that I have. It does have a high MRSP at $199.99, so I would recommend looking for it on sale. I think it is great though, and it does everything that I’m looking for in a kettle so I’m happy with the purchase because it makes steeping tea a breeze.

 

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DavidsTea’s Supreme Pekoe

Supreme Pekoe by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Straight
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I grew up on orange pekoe as a staple in my life, so I have fairly high expectations since Supreme Pekoe is a lot more expensive than the Red Rose that I grew up on. DavidsTea describes the tea as having ‘graham cracker notes’, which was intriguing enough to me to get some to try. The dry tea of Supreme Pekoe smells a bit like plums, but it doesn’t smell overly fruity to me. The dry leaf of the tea smells like Red Rose to me, which is a very familiar tea, but Red Rose doesn’t make me think of plums. The tea leaves smell smallish to what I’ve come to expect from DavidsTea’s teas.

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Supreme Pekoe is described as being an ethically sourced tea with black tea from the Sabaragamuwa Province in Sri Lanka.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Supreme Pekoe in near-boiling water for 4-7 minutes. The product page on their website for Supreme Pekoe has the temperatures as 90-95°C (194-203°F). My first steep was for 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Supreme Pekoe steeps to a golden orange colour. I would recommend steeping this tea with a fine mesh infuser or a filter bag because there was a bit of dust that wound up in the bottom of my Tea For One pot, thankfully this didn’t end up in the tea itself.

The taste of Supreme Pekoe is a lot bolder than the orange pekoe of my childhood. It has a strong flavour, there’s a malty quality to it, and there’s more depth to the flavour with the addition of a wheat or grain quality to it. I would hazard a guess that this is what DavidsTea was talking about when they mentioned the graham crackers. It is interesting, for sure, and I quite like it. Supreme Pekoe does taste good on its own. The addition of sweetener (I used sugar) helps to brighten up the flavours, and does bring out more of that grain taste.

My childhood tea was Hong Kong-style milk tea (orange pekoe with evaporated milk and some kind of sweetener), I couldn’t resist doing the same with Supreme Pekoe. The tea itself holds up well with the addition of evaporated milk and sugar – the bolder tea base stands up and makes the milk tea more flavourful overall.

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A Second Cup?

I did resteep Supreme Pekoe – it holds up well for a second steep! The leaves unfurl quite a bit, and were larger than I had expected from the appearance of the dry leaf. The flavour is still as bold as the first steep, which is definitely something that I was never successful with when it came to resteeping Red Rose’s orange pekoe.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Supreme Pekoe. Orange pekoe has always held a special place in my heart, so I did unfairly have expectations for this tea to be good as well. I found it to be very enjoyable and it does very well on its own or with sweetener and milk. It works well as an any time tea, and if you’ve never tried Hong Kong-style milk tea before I would highly recommend it!

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea

Earl of Bengal Tea by Teatulia
Black Tea / Flavoured
$11.62 USD for 32g (16 tea bags)

I received this carton Earl of Bengal Tea by Teatulia as part of a reward for backing the Kickstarter for Tea Journey, an online tea magazine. I was unable to find Earl of Bengal Tea on the Teatulia website, I based the pricing on their other 16 count teas. The last review of this tea on Steepster was from over 2 years ago, so I suspect that this tea was old stock being given away as part of the Kickstarter.

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First Impressions

I really like the overall presentation of Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea. It comes in what they call an “eco-canister”, which their packaging describes as being hand crafted and printed on recycled paper. Earl of Bengal Tea is captioned as being a “refreshing new take on the classic Earl Grey”. The carton has some preparation instructions, says that each bag can be brewed twice, and that all of the teas from Teatulia are sourced directly from Kazi & Kazi Estate Ltd. in Bangladesh. It further goes to describe that it’s a single tea garden, and that Teatulia creates a sustainable partnership with the people there. Pretty neat!

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The carton is not air-tight, the 16 tea bags are in a clear plastic bag that is not sealed or resealable. This is a bit of a let down since air is one of the things that can cause tea to go stale. I put the entire bag into a plastic zipper bag just to seal them in. Each individual tea bag is made out of corn silk (as per the packaging) and they are compostable. The whole tea leaves are visible through the corn silk sachet, but they do look small. The bergamot flavouring isn’t as heavy as I’m used to with Earl Grey teas, but I am looking forward to trying it! Earl of Bengal Tea is made up of organic black ta and oil of bergamot.

Preparation

Teatulia recommends steeping Earl of Bengal in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, and then recommends repeating for a second cup.

First Taste

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Earl of Bengal steeps to a lovely orange colour, it is quite clear and the corn silk sachet does a fantastic job of keeping most of the tea leaf debris out of the tea itself. It smells like a very mild Earl Grey as it still lacks a strong bergamot scent. I had steeped it for the full recommended three minutes. Tasting it, it tastes quite like a rather plain black tea. It isn’t bitter when steeped for the full 3 minutes, which is nice. Nothing in particular stands out about this tea though.

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I did try adding some sweetener to the tea to see if it would help bring out the flavour. I used sugar and found that the black tea base does stand out a little bit more with the addition of a sweetener. It tastes almost astringent with the added sweetness to the tea. The bergamot remains lost.

The corn silk sachet itself does a good job, as you can see in the above photo that there is still some room for the leaves to expand. It is nice that it isn’t overly filled with leaves. I do think that the tea could have done better if they had been loose, so I may try this tea again with the leaves emptied into an infuser.

A Second Cup?

Because it was recommended, I attempted to steep Earl of Bengal for a second time and it was a very lackluster tea. It was very weak and watery, I would not recommend steeping it for a second time.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea. As much as I wanted to, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I would have expected something with a heavier hand of the bergamot oil, as it was meant to be a refreshing new take on the Earl Grey. I think this tea works well if you’re looking for a black tea that could stand to be doctored up with some sweetener or cream, but overall I would say that there are other better (and less expensive) black tea options out there to try.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.