Tefal Quick Cup

A year or two ago, our kettle broke. We got a Tefal Quick Cup to replace it. Just the right amount of water is heated as it passes through an element, meaning you only heat the water you need. It also dispenses cool filtered water. What's not to like ?

What's not to like:

1. The 'cool' water is room temperature, which is hardly cool on a hot day. If you want cool filtered water, get a water filter jug and keep it in the fridge. If you want cool water, get it from the tap.

2. 'Cool' water remains in the pipe/element until the next time you use it. This means that you get a small amount of cold water in your cup. The workaround is to start the hot water for a second, stop it, empty the tepid water into the sink and then start making a drink. If you forget to do this it makes instant black coffee even more disgusting than it normally is, and white coffee undrinkable. Tea is a disaster. Coffee in a cafetière is just about OK, except ours doesn't fit under the Quick Cup's spout easily.

3. Tea is a disaster. Boiling water plus teabag in a mug may be against the law, but it's how most people make tea these days. While it's not as nice as making it in a warmed pot with a little patience, it'll make a fairly decent cuppa. WARNING! DO NOT MAKE TEA WITH A TEFAL QUICK CUP! No. Seriously. Don't do it. It'll be like American tea, where you get cup of warm water and a teabag on the side.

4. You'll need a kettle anyway. Being impatient, we ended up buying a cheap kettle anyway, for boiling water to make pasta etc. Turns out it's good for tea as well.

5. It feels more inconvenient. If you're making one cup or two, it's probably better. Making four or six or eight makes you feel like a galley slave. Worse though, is that it engenders an entitlement to instant gratification. Whereas with a kettle, it's automatic to fill it to a desired level as you put it on, with the TQC, it's automatic just to hit the button. Fine if the reservoir is full, but SO UNFAIR if, mid cup, it starts spitting out steam and coughing.

6. It dispenses a set amount of water. This is mostly a convenience. Press once, get a mug full of water. Not all of our mugs are the same capacity, so some get dangerously full and others pique the pessimist in me and seem half empty.

7. It dispenses a set amount of water, but with no intelligence, and it encourages a lack of attention from the user. Press the button a second time, and it stops. Press it again and it'll yield a whole mug's worth again. Usually not a problem, but if the reservoir runs dry, and you're forced ALL THE WAY across the kitchen to fill it up, when you poke that button, you get a full cup's worth. If you're not paying attention, that could be half a cup's worth of dilute coffee all over the work surface.

8. It dispenses a set amount of water. See 4 and 5.


In summary, this is what it's good at:

1. Instant black coffee, as long as you remember to purge the spout.

This is what it's bad at:

2. Everything else.

Buy a kettle instead.