Tea Sunrise wrote:
Do they really heat water faster?

Than what, precisely? No household electric kettle is likely to heat
faster than a good metal one on a gas stove, which can deliver of the
order of 10 kW. Normal home wiring limits electric kettles to 1-2 kW.
If the comparison is an electric stove, a high-power electric kettle
will be faster. The power is almost as high as a range element, and
thermal contact is better.

How would you regulate how hot the water gets, either boiling or on
the brink of boiling? (usually I let the water rest for a few minutes
before steeping senchas, whites, and other delicate teas)

The first part gets complicated. Some of us stop heating when the kettle
makes a certain noise, when the bubbles are a particular size, when we
feel like it... A few even use thermometers. Others just buy
thermostatted kettles, which vary widely in temperature accuracy and
stability.

On the latter point: water cools very slowly when enclosed to prevent
evaporation. People often confuse the step-change from heating the walls
of a pot or cup with progressive cooling. It's unlikely that a rest as
you describe will drop the temperature by more than a few degrees,
certainly not enough to drop from boiling to sencha temperature. A more
effective method is to dilute boiling water with a known quantity of
room-temperature water. (The sharing pitcher/ fair pot is a handy vessel
for this.) Personally, I almost always have a creamer of tap water ready
for tempering kettle water before adding to the teapot or gaiwan.

As a side question, do you measure how hot the water gets before
steeping your high quality loose leaf teas.


Some do. Some of us find it more enjoyable to stay with intuition and
experience. As the saying goes, it is only through wisdom that we avoid
error - but it is only through error that we acquire wisdom.

-DM