Best Kettle for Mate

When you start to drink mate, there is one accessory that you don’t need to worry about, because most likely you already have one — a kettle. Kettle is one of the most common kitchen appliances. It’s hard to find a kitchen without a kettle — I am sure yours is not an exclusion. However, I would argue that having a separate, proper kettle specifically for mate is not really a hassle but on the contrary, a boon to your experience. Sure, you can continue using an ordinary and common electric or stovetop kettle — hell, you can even use a simple pot for heating water and skip kettle altogether! The best kettle for mate though, has extra functionality and features that will benefit materos, it will take your mate game to a whole new level and allow you to enjoy mate with precision that none of the regular kettles or pots can achieve.

What makes a good kettle for mate?

Temperature control

Both coffee and tea (apart from some green and white varieties) are being brewed at the boiling or almost boiling temperature, which is quite easy to achieve without any special equipment. We all know how boiling water looks, and you can get it to that state even without the kettle — any pot will do for that purpose.

Mate, however, is a different beast. You never want to brew yerba mate with a boiling water for two reasons:

• The flavors of yerba mate are destroyed with overly hot water and mate becomes too bitter for most of the people to consume;
• The default way of drinking mate — traditionally — assumes that you sip mate as soon as you refill the gourd, and sipping boiling hot water straight away pretty much guarantees that you’ll burn yourself and exposes you to a higher risk of mouth and throat cancers.

From my experience and experiences of millions of other people who enjoy mate on a daily basis, the best water temperature is about 60° C to 85° C / 140° F to 185° F , depending on yerba mate brand and your personal preferences. In our yerba mate reviews I go into more details about water temperature for different yerba mates, how it affects its taste and other properties, such as durability. Therefore, for your own safety and maximum enjoyment, it is important to make sure that you get precise water temperature when preparing mate.

A good kettle for mate will have some sort of way to heat up water to a desired temperature. Such kettles will either have a built-in thermometer that will allow you to see temperature of the water that’s inside, or will allow you to select precise or pre-programmed temperature that the kettle will heat up to.

Ease of pour

At first it may seem like a silly reason for picking a kettle for mate, but I personally find myself gravitating towards gooseneck kettles that have more convenient pour than average stovetop or electric kettles with short and wide spout. There are few reasons for this. First, the opening of thermos is not that wide, so it feels more comfortable to transfer water from the kettle via a narrower and more precise gooseneck spout.

Second, and it’s often overlooked, is that more often than not, I have some leftover water in my kettle after filling up my vacuum bottle, so first few refills in my mate come from the kettle while it’s still hot. Pouring water from the kettle into a small opening of a gourd, especially if it’s poro shaped, is much easier with gooseneck spout, so if you have an option to get one of these kettles — definitely consider it as it’s much more convenient than you might’ve expected.

Capacity

Another thing that a good kettle for mate should have is an appropriate capacity. It should have enough volume to entirely fill up your thermos — i.e. if your thermos is 1.5 liters then you need to be able to heat 1.5 liters of water in your kettle. Vast majority of kettles on the market have capacity of at least 1 liter, and most of them exceed that, ranging from 2 to 3 liters. You may be thinking that the bigger the kettle the better — you can always heat up less water in a big kettle if needed — but that is only partially true.

If you’re often heating, say 1 liter of water in a 3 liter kettle, it could be pretty hard to measure the volume of water precisely each time, unless you have some volume markings on the kettle. Also, if the kettle has a built-in temperature control or a thermometer, you will only get a precise temperature of water if you fill the kettle with its maximum capacity. Water and air inside the kettle heat up at a different rate, and you may not get the most accurate temperature measurements, especially when, say, only 1/3 of the kettle is filled with water, because the kettle is most likely measuring the temperature of hot air inside, not the water. Therefore, I would highly suggest matching the capacity of the kettle to that of your vacuum bottle, making it easier to measure both how much water you’ll need to heat up and the temperature you want it to be at.

Design

Last but not least, are the looks of the kettle. Yes, cool features and functionality are very important, but let’s be honest — as humans we strive for beauty and aesthetics, and kettle is one of the most used kitchen appliances that should fit the design of your kitchen. Luckily, there are tons of choices on the market, ranging from minimalistic stainless steel kettles, to more artisanal and futuristic, so you will definitely find a kettle that speaks to you and fits your kitchen.

Best overall kettle for mate

This kettle has everything that you need in a kettle for mate — an extremely precise temperature control up to a single degree, superfast heating speed, so you can start drinking mate as soon as possible, convenient pour for both your thermos and gourd and beautiful futuristic design that will fit beautifully into any kitchen. It can even maintain the desired temperature for up to an hour, so you can even skip using the vacuum bottle entirely, granted that you will finish your mate session in 60 minutes and don’t mind extra electricity costs for that constant heating.

It may come with few drawbacks, however, depending on your needs and the depth of your wallet. This kettle is quite expensive, and only comes in 1 liter capacity, but if you don’t use a thermos that is bigger than 1 liter and don’t mind a relatively hefty sum (for a kettle), it will definitely not disappoint you and will greatly improve your quality of mate brewing and make it more effortless and therefore more enjoyable.

Fellow Stagg Electric Kettle With Temperature Control

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Best stovetop kettle for mate

Despite having an engineering degree in computer science and career in IT, I am still a pretty analogue guy. I like writing things down on paper with a fountain pen, I like having a proper analogue watch on my wrist and I like the concept of owning and listening to a vinyl record. If you are like me, you can’t go wrong with this small 1 liter gooseneck stovetop kettle with a built-in analogue thermometer. It’s made from thin stainless steel, so it’s very lightweight and fits any type of stove, including induction cooker, and has pretty minimalistic design. There’s not much else about this kettle and that’s why I love it — there is nothing really to break, you don’t have to worry about electricity outages, and as long as you have any source of heat you know you can always have your mate.

The drawbacks of this kettle are pretty obvious and stem from its analogue nature — keep in mind that it will boil-dry if you forget about it, so you will need to manually turn this kettle off once it reaches the desired temperature. But, if you’ll be thoughtful and attentive (hopefully mate is already making you more present and mindful), this kettle will last you a lifetime and will never let you down.

Gooseneck Kettle With Thermometer

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Best regular electric kettle for mate

Not everyone is ready to shell out big bucks for just a kettle. At the end of the day, people simply need a water heating device not only for mate, but for tea, coffee, or even instant noodles. This regular electric kettle is perfect for that scenario — a universal kitchen appliance with enough volume for several people, boil-dry protection and simple time-proven heating element.

But, it still provides some cool features that might be useful for materos, such as pre-set temperature modes, ability to maintain temperature up to one hour and, if needed, a large maximum capacity of water that is enough to fill those bigger thermoses. Unfortunately, the temperature control is not as precise as in more expensive models, which may or may not be a problem — for instance, even if you won’t need up to a single degree accuracy, this kettle still lacks the ability to heat water lower than 70° C / 160° F .

Elite Gourmet 1.7 Liter Temperature Control Electric Kettle

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Next steps

As I already wrote many times — water is a very important part of mate experience. Sure, you can heat up water for your mate in a simple pot, but being able to heat it up fast, safely and precisely will level up your enjoyment of mate and eliminate those small struggles that allow you to concentrate on what’s the most important — drinking mate, enjoying its taste and effects on your mind and body. Maybe it will sound like a paradox, but a good kettle for mate is the one that you will eventually not think about at all, apart from making a decision about water temperature.

Speaking of which — make sure to take a look at our vast collections of yerba mate reviews to see what temperature is best for any given mate. And if you want to learn more about the importance of water for mate, its temperature and quality — check out our guide that will dovetail nicely with what we’re discussing here about kettles.

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How do you heat up your water for mate? Which do you prefer — electric or stovetop kettle? What features in a kettle do you care about the most? Share it in the comments below!