Descaling your tea kettle as a feisty American in the UK:the why and how
Let’s remind ourselves of The Mysterious Things you might discover upon moving to the UK as a feisty and intelligent American lady. Oh darling, will there be plenty. No one tells you (well besides us, I mean) that you might notice your British partner doesn’t rinse the suds off dishes, duvet covers might wean you from your beloved sheets for good, that in this country Asbestos is no biggie despite what you thought, and that you will need to be able to make tea for 10 Brits and get them all right. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! But– amongst those initial discoveries is the reality that you might need to descale the tea kettle at some point to get rid of rust and limescale buildup. Descaling the tea kettle is a frequent joke amongst us 3 American women and a frequent laughing point when we have one of our Betty’s tea parties (wait, I hope Betty’s descales their kettle?!).
Us three American ladies on this blog are very different, and it is highlighted by our approach to the tea kettle descaling. Do you fall into any of these categories?
Yankee bean: She doesn’t bother with descaling and actually didn’t know what the heck I was talking about at our first mention of descaling. She said something along the lines of “Descaling? You mean cutting fish open?” Needless, to say she happily drinks her tea regardless of the mineral buildup– she won’t mind me telling you that the bottom of her tea kettle looks like a dandruff storm that has settled for life. I admire her relaxed nature to this and wish I could be so chilled about it.
Pacificbird: She only uses natural ingredients to descale to coincide with her uber-healthy lifestyle. She has tried numerous natural recipes and the most popular ones include using citric acid, lemon, vinegar, water… this goes along perfectly with her decision to give up caffeine and drink herbal cuppas instead.
Well, then there is me here–I can’t stand drinking tea from a nasty scaled tea kettle, with weird white things floating in the water. It just grosses me out. For example, I teach at a very posh college, but do those Old Boys bother to descale their very schmancy fancy silver coated kettle? No! So, I decline tea very politely. But in my home I descale my Tesco 5 quid bargain kettle every four months with those little descaling packets you can buy. By descaling I have had my cheapo kettle for years! Click here for a great little article on how and why to complete this important task. Gosh it’s so satisfying.
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Dreamer…unrealistic?…do i care? on 
yankeebean on 
I have to admit, there are certain things that upset the time/money balance in that the time invested is not worth the money saved… I’m in the “buy a new kettle” camp myself
But I deeply admire those who de-scale, and I do it with my Nespresso machine, I just can’t be bothered with the 10 GBP electric kettle that I use infrequently.
You hit the nail on the head with my de-scaling regime
I’m really not fussed about it, although I do descale my espresso machine that flat out refuses to give me my much-needed caffeine after several months of scaled-up-madness.
We’ve been using the kettle for about 5 years now without a de-scale in sight. That IS a little frightening… but now it’s like the Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy experiments and I want to see what happens
I’m with Yankeebean. I grew up in the Chilterns (north west of London), where the underlying rock is chalk, and scale was just a part of life I guess. I don’t even notice it.
lol….lol….fairy liquid, was told to quit rinsing the dishes….had to wash the duvet cover and put it back on, I angrily said to my daughter this is why I got rid of the one and only one I had…lol, and was constantly told not to forget to offer everyone in the room tea or coffee…didn’t get to do any descaling but saw the descaling stuff in the cabinet…probably would have if I had stayed longer…lol
Good Lord…Nick thinks I’m nuts b/c I flipped out about the soapy dishes. It’s just weird to leave all the soap on there!
I avoid dealing with the kettle at all really…
But ladies, oh ladies, I have to defend the mighty descale process. Why, its so so cheap and easy! You pour in the powder (less than 2 quid), let it sit for 5 mins and then whoosh all that crud is gone. Not to mention it saves money and energy. Good god– I sound like the script for an infomercial.
Ha, I didn’t realize that it’s a common thing for Brits to not rinse the soap suds off dishes. I thought my hubby just lacked some basic domestic skills. I bet Australians do it too. When visiting Australia last year, I noticed my sister-in-law didn’t rinse the suds off. As for descaling, the first time I saw stuff floating around my kettle I thought it was the kettle itself eroding! I assumed my landlords were cheapos and that they bought some defective China made kettle that was slowly poisoning me. I bought a new one and stored the original for when I moved out. When it happened again to the new kettle, I finally figured out it was the water and not the kettle. Your typical ‘duh’ moment. I wasn’t too fussed and didn’t clean it. I figured I was getting extra minerals that way.
Did you know about electric kettles before moving to England? It generally seems like Americans don’t know about them.
No I had no idea about electric kettles before I moved to England, did you? I have since bought one at good ol’ Wal-mart to keep at my mother’s house in the USA. I can still have cuppa every morning the way i am used to when I visit. They are very more pricey to buy in the states compared to here, as they are a rare thing. I haven’t scaled it though… yet. haha
I had one of those small electric kettles back in the states…mainly for my English honey when he would visit. Now that I am here in the UK..I need to descale my hubby’s kettle..looks like it has never been done! And as for rinsing the dishes…my mum always said that the soap on there would make you sick. I don’t rinse either as the DH does all the washing up in my house! I am one lucky duck!
I’m glad you’re coming to visit – our kettle could use a good descale
I’m fascinated by this apparent obsession with kettle de-scaling. I have lived in a number of locations in the UK and have never de-scaled a kettle in all of my 43 years, despite making and drinking tea in vast quantities. Nor have I ever seen scale build up in the first place. I have only seen floaty bits once, at my brother’s place when he lived in London for a bit.
I grew up in Yorkshire, and have lived in various bits of Yorkshire most of my life. Is there actually anywhere at all in Yorkshire afflicted with hard water (which would cause the scale) ?
I was taught that the reason why the (textile) industrial revolution begain in Yorkshire and Lancashire was that the water is soft, leading to easier fulling (cloth washing during manufacture). Soft water does not scale kettles, sayeth my ‘O’ level chemistry teacher of yore.
Hence my puzzlement at the emphasis on kettle scale in a blog with the “Y” word in its very title.
So whassit all about?
Severs! You might be one of people I work with at the Yorkshire Old Boys school I teach at by chance?! The tea kettle there is FILLED with white dandruff flakes waiting to be consumed. Yum!
I am glad we have common interests and that you are fascinated about the tea kettle descaling obsession. I am too! Call me crazy but I just love a cup of tea without floaty things in it…how odd!
Severs, yes, there is hard water in Yorkshire! I lived in Bridlington for a year and we had hard water there.
I kept my kettle relatively scale-free by always emptying it after each time I used it. There used to be little brillo-pad-like thingies you could buy to put in the kettle that were supposed to catch the scale. Never had one though, so I don’t know if they worked very well.
I had to buy an electric automatic kettle in Canada cos 24 years ago they were rare as hen’s teeth over here. (Yes, you could buy ‘hot-pots’ but NOT automatic kettles.) Now it’s not so difficult to find them, though I suspect they’re still more expensive than in the UK. I have a Krups one that was about $70 four years ago.