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In my quest for a healthier lifestyle, I decided to add green tea to my daily liquid intake. I've never been a coffee or tea drinker so I perused Amazon to find an electric tea kettle for my work office.
I decided to try the Aroma AWK-160SB kettle/cooker for several reasons. First, I like that it's stainless steel and not plastic like so many other electric teapots. Second, the price seemed very reasonable for the item's quality, and third, the pasta option seemed really cool!
I got my kettle and took it to work, only to find that the on/off switch would kick to off immediately when I turned the temp up. So, to boil water I had to hold down the switch manually. Not good. I contacted Amazon about returning the item and was VERY VERY impressed with their return policy on faulty products. They RUSHED me a new one AND paid return postage on the bad one. In this day of awful customer service being the norm for so many companies, I was thrilled about how well Amazon treated me.
When I got the new one, I was happy to find that it worked just fine. It is SO versatile. I've cooked both pasta and oatmeal in it, and also make my daily green tea. It comes to a boil very quickly and it's very easy to turn down the dial and stabilize the water temp at just under a rolling boil for pasta.
My only complaint is that the cord that comes out of the base is really short, but worse is that it's stiff and twisted (from being wrapped around the base) and when you don't have the pot on the base, the cord can and will whip the base around like what happens to a person at the end of the line in 'crack the whip'.
I would think this item would be handy for an office, a dorm room or a single person's kitchen. All in all, I'm quite impressed with its features and its cost/quality value.
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I use this as a water kettle only currently, and I really like it so far. I've looked for a long time for an electric kettle that allows the water not to contact any plastic, and this kettle has this exact feature -the interior is completely metal although the lid is plastic, but you don't have to use the lid if you don't want to. I also like the way the heating element is completely sealed and that the kettle detaches from the base (the cordless feature). This kettle's construction appear to be very good quality, and it has a 1-year warranty. Its water kettle function works great -it boils 1 liter of cold water in about 5 minutes. It being a noodle cooker/ soup warmer is a cool feature that I might use one day. This item also comes with a collander and a cute little metal pasta fork to aid you with cooking noodles. I'm very glad I found this kettle.
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I've only had this item for 3 weeks now and primarily purchased it for cooking 2 portions of pasta and Ramen noodle soups quickly.. I've used it about 15 times so far and here are the results..
The Good:
The pot is extreamly well built and boils water for cooking pasta and soups much quicker than on the stove. The pasta cooking feature works great for 2 cups (dry) of wide egg noodles, as well as Ramen Noodle soups.
It also works great for simply boiling water for tea or any other use, and the automatic shutoff feature is great as well..
The Bad:
Because the electronics are in the pot itself, and not the base, and the manual warns of getting those components wet, the pot is more difficult to clean than it should be. The pot is also not teflon lined, so I would not be inclined to cook cream based soups or other things that might stick.. I also have to agree with another reviewer here about the power cord.. It's very stiff and unyielding, much more so than necessary in this day and age. When the pot is off the base its basically "the tail wagging the dog". The cord is also hard to store in the base as well.
The Bottom Line.
If you can live with the bad which isn't really hard to do, it's a great little appliance and has found a favored spot in my kitchen..
Honest reviews on Aroma AWK-160SB Pasta Plus Water Kettle and Noodle Cooker
I bought this item to boil water and cook food without a range after my house burned down. It boils water pretty fast and is great for drip coffee or espresso. You can also throw the tea bags right in it for tea. I cooked pasta in it, and although the cleanup isn't fun and you have to be careful about the water level so it doesn't boil over, that works too. For a single serving, it's so much faster than a stove as well. I also used it for instant oatmeal and to heat soup. You can eat right out of it if you want.
To clean it, I soak it in a vinegar solution overnight, and then it's easy. I have well water with lots of minerals, so that takes care of the mineral buildup at the same time. I'd never get one that didn't have a wide opening as it would be horrible to clean! The simple shape and wide opening means you can get right in there with a scrubbie.
I also love that there's no plastic in contact with the water. I had a plastic one, and one day it shocked me when I placed my finger in the water (the metal heating element didn't interface well with the plastic container), and the plastic got horribly discolored with iron and tomato sauce.
But, after using the Aroma for four months, I started to smell plastic burning inside the unit. It seemed that it had an electrical issue, and that could cause a fire! Which, after being through a fire and being told by the fire marshal that small appliances are a major cause of house fires, freaked me out! I hope I just got a defective one. I liked its functionality so much I might try another...it's so versatile and the stainless steel is high quality and thick.
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I've used electric teakettles for about 25 years. This one promises to last a long time the heating element is self-contained, the pot itself has no holes in it, and thus no gaskets to leak. However, it was designed by someone who never uses an electric teakettle.
It is sloppy to pour, and clumsy to fill (you have to remove the top, which is locked on or is it off? hard to tell by 2 little press tabs). The top always has a large puddle of condensation ready to drip out. It is hard to read the Max and Min labels. Also, I have twice scalded my thumb because of the gap between the handle and the top. Plus, I really cannot imagine someone using both the teakettle and the pasta cooker maybe my son at college, except he wouldn't trust the plastic drainer. Others are keen on the lack of plastic, but the top is plastic and the pasta strainer is cheap plastic.
I think the scalding concern should make this a good candidate for recall.
Aroma could have made this quite elegant and useful, but instead it is simply klutzy and unsafe.
