A kettle, sometimes called a tea kettle or teakettle, is a type of pot, typically metal, specialized for boiling water over a heat source, with a lid, spout and handle, or a small kitchen appliance of similar shape that functions in a self-contained manner. Kettles can be heated either by placing on a stove, or by their own internal electric heating element in the appliance versions.
In coffee brewing, kettles are very useful for manual coffee brewing methods such as hand drip, French press, or AeroPress. With manual brewing, coffee extraction is performed in a device that doesn’t have any heating capabilities. Water needs to be heated separately. Kettles have various features that can improve the extraction precision. The most important features are: ease of handling, ergonomic, variable temperature, water temperature precision.
A popular kettle for coffee brewing is the gooseneck kettle. This kettle has a long, thin spout which aids in accuracy and precision for coffee pouring. As mentioned, these kettles are traditionally just pouring devices and don’t heat the water electrically. Water can be heated in this kettle using a stove or heat source or else water can be heated using a standard electric kettle and transferred to the gooseneck kettle.
These days it is possible to buy an electric gooseneck kettle that can be brewed to specific temperatures. This is extremely useful for coffee brewing as standard kettles heat water to boiling point which is too hot for coffee extraction and burns the coffee.