8 tips guide to buying a tea kettle

Looking for a teapot in the Prairie School Style? Good luck. I was looking to buy my girlfriend a teapot for her birthday. She lives in Oak Park the Prairie School center, and she likes that style. I looked high and low for a teapot that is sorta like a Frank Lloyd Wright style. Or even in a Bauhaus style.

Along the way, I learned some lessons about teapots.

1) There are teapots, and there are tea kettles

You do not put teapots on the stovetop. You put tea kettles on the stovetop to heat up the water, and then you pour the water into a teapot to brew the tea. Who knew?!

From here on out in this post, I will call it tea kettle, because that’s what I was really looking for. Something to heat water on the stovetop.

2) The best tea kettles don’t have a seam on the bottom

The stainless steel tea kettles that have the wall perpendicular to base are bad. Those involve having a seam. The seam will rust or be hard to clean. The best tea kettles have a rounded curve where the wall meets the base.

3) Enamel tea kettles are better than raw stainless steel

According to many tea kettle reviewers on Amazon, stainless steel might rust. (Which blows my mind, cuz I thought stainless steel didn’t rust). Enamel is better. But then, some reviews for enamel tea kettles said the enamel might flake off. I like the look of stainless steel better, so I went with that.

4) There are no Frank Lloyd Wright-style tea kettles

They simply do not exist. Please, find one and prove me wrong.

5) Higher handles are good

Some handles on tea kettles get too hot, and you have to use an oven mitt to hold the handle. That’s dumb.

6) Low plastic handles are bad

You don’t want the plastic to melt. That would be bad

7) Plastic covers on the blower-whistle part are bad

That can melt. And that would be bad.

8) Low-heat tea kettles are a waste of time

Some tea kettles say that you have to put your tea kettle on a low flame. What? No. I want my water to boil and boil fast!

Ok, so to show how much research I did into both the form and the function of the tea kettle, here are the google searches I did over the course of five hours of research:

• Christopher Dresser teapot
• Danish Soholm Atelier Teapot
• danish Teapot
• do I put ceramic teapots on the stove?
• frank lloyd wright tea
• frank lloyd wright tea pot
• frank lloyd wright tea pot -guggenheim
• general electric tea kettle
• globo teapot
• Marianne Brandt tea
• modern teapot
• naoko teapot
• Naum Slutzky tea
• Naum Slutzky teapot
• Object Creative – Tea
• Otto Lindig
• Otto Lindig teapot
• Russel Wright teapot
• Russell Wright teapot
• Scandinavian teapot
• soho teapot
• Soholm Atelier Teapot
• sorapot
• Stelton Potter Tea Pot
• Storia Teapot
• Storia Teapot, Herman Kahler
• tea kettle
• tea kettle Amazon
• teapot design
• teapot hello-tiger
• toast indian teapot
• Walter Gropius
• Walter Gropius tea

Here are some nice tea kettles on my Modern Tea Kettles Pinterest board. Do you have a tea kettle? If so, what type do you have?