Tea time

What

Whether you're a devo-tea of a builder's brew, coffee or hot chocolate, it's time to put your mettle to the kettle. We are a nation of tea addicts, there's no denying it. We glug down about 165 million cups of tea a day, and 70 million cups of coffee, yet 2/3 of us boil far more water than we need.

Only boil what you need – any extra and you’re wasting time, money, and valuable energy.

Why

A watched kettle never boils… especially an overfilled one. Why wait around for water you don't need to boil when you could be sitting supping a beautiful beverage?

How

It's not rocket science, just fill the kettle with what you need.

  • Do the tea call before you boil – check how many people you’re making for (and pick up brownie points while you’re at it).
  • To save you measuring the cup each time, why not draw a marker on your kettle (if it doesn’t already have one) showing how much is needed to fill your favourite mug?
  • Buy an energy efficient kettle making it nice and easy for you to only boil enough water for what you need. The Ethical Superstore have some great options.

References

1. 20 gCO2 wasted by boiling more than you need (source: How Bad Are Bananas? Tim Berners-Lee, page 36). 20gCO2 is emitted by 0.0403 kWh of grid electricity, which costs £0.0056 (EST, March 2016). 165,000,000 cups of tea are drunk each day in UK (source: 1. UK Tea and Infusions Association). 165,000,000 x £0.0056 = £922,137.

2. Our own calculations based on data from The Guardian: 165,000,000 cups of tea + 75,000,000 cups of coffee, assuming on average 200ml water in each = 48 mil litres of boiled water used in UK a day. 67% people admit to over filling, on average boiling double what they need (Energy Saving Trust). So that’s 48 million litres x 0.67 = 32 million litres boiled unnecessarily each day.