We have a habit of breaking kettles in our house, possibly due to over use, so when the last one went bang I decided on the Breville Lightening Keep Warm kettle.

It has been a good little performer, boiling water in super quick time and then, by pressing the ‘keep warm’ button, it will make your next cuppa an even swifter affair. It is one for the tea or coffee junkie and I fit that bill quite nicely as I get through far more cups of Earl Grey than is good for me.

To look at, it is a reasonably attractive unit as far as these things go. Mine has a silver body and base unit with two shades of grey for the handle, and there is a viewing window so that one can check the water level.

Filling it to maximum gives one 8 cups, although with the super-sized mugs I use it is actually closer to 4 of those. Boiling it full with cold water takes a very swift 3 minutes and 40 seconds. One can then hit the ‘keep warm’ button and the kettle will subsequently boil up within a minute. I cannot imagine that this is particularly environmentally friendly in terms of energy use and I do get a small spark of concern every time I use it, but my desire to prop up Twinings almost single-handedly gets the better of me.

I will reserve final judgement on its longevity as I have only had it for a few months, but so far it has appeared to be robust and reliable. The only problem I have had was my own fault: I got the underside of the kettle wet while filling it up and tripped all the circuits in the house.

In summary then, the kettle is fast, nice looking and (so far) reliable. I struggle to find anything to criticise about it.