After testing the best boiling water taps, I’ve ditched my kettle for good – here are the top 8 I tried

Whether you’re a keen cook or a keen tea drinker, chances are in the kitchen you need a fairly steady stream of boiling water. While there’s always the traditional kettle, more of us are opting to install boiling-water taps.

As a product review with a special interest in home appliances, I took to the road testing the best boiling-water taps to find the market leaders.

I’ve never had an issue with my kettle - it is one the best kettles out there, as you might expect. And they’re brilliant – they’re more affordable, and really the only option if you’re living in rented (unless your landlord will generously install a boiling water tap for you). But through researching and testing boiling-water taps for this article, I doubt I could go back to my kettle now. Here are the hot taps you need to know about.

How I tested the best boiling water taps

With the best will in the world, I couldn’t get all the taps in this line up installed in my own home.

So aside from the one I did get installed for testing, I also visited friends’ taps and got hands-on testing experience (while grilling them for their loves and bug bears about their taps). And I visited showrooms to get hands-on experience with other boiling water taps. There are a few here that I couldn’t test, which I've outlined below, so I’ve based my assessment of those ones on thorough research.

Image 1 of 7

The quick list

Tight for time? This quick list is an overview of the very best boiling and hot water taps. You'll find more information on each tap and why I recommend each one if you keep on scrolling.

Best boiling water tap overall

The Dutch-designed Quooker was the first ever 100°C boiling water tap and, in my opinion, yet to be beaten! This best-selling 3-in-1 Fusion model comes in a curved or square spout. You can also get a Classic version with more traditional detailing. Ditch bottled water and add a CUBE tank, which delivers chilled still and sparkling water that’s ultra-purified and tastes amazing.

I’ve tried the Quooker Fusion on several occasions, at friends’ homes and kitchen showrooms.

Plus, our Editor-in-Chief Heather Young has owned a Fusion Square in patinated brass for a year and is totally smitten. ‘It always delivers boiling water whenever we need it – we have the three-litre tank and have never experienced it running out of hot water, or not being hot enough,’ she says. ‘I use it both for hot drinks and to fill pans when I need boiling water for pasta or cooking eggs, for example.’ Heather is completely in love with the brass finish and says it needs little-to-no cleaning and actually looks better with age.

One downside Heather has highlighted, and I have also noticed, is how much steam the Quooker Fusion produces. Like many true boiling water taps, it can be a little spitty too, which is scary at first, but you soon learn how to stay away from the spray. Top tip: hold the tap spout right down into your mug, jug or pan so the sides of the vessel protect you from spitting water.

‘The on mechanism also takes a little bit of getting used to – once you know the action it's fine, but visitors often have trouble operating the tap themselves,’ adds Heather.

To access boiling water, you push the textured metal ring down twice to release the safety lock, then twist to turn it on and off. I’d agree it’s quite fiddly and not great for those with reduced grip. I do like the LED light ring that glows red to show you’re in boiling water mode though.

Best mid-range boiling water tap

Part of Greg Rowe Limited (previously of Perrin & Rowe fame), QETTLE was launched with the sole aim of offering high-quality true boiling water taps with value-for-money price tags. The brand’s Original model starts from just £545, and it’s worth noting the replacement filters are way cheaper than its rivals at just more than £30.

This is the boiling water tap our kitchen expert Linda Clayton bought for her kitchen, after endless research. Besides the brand’s stellar reputation in the brassware industry, she says her main motivation for choosing the Signature Modern above all others was its extra safety feature.

Alongside the usual two-stage push-and-turn anti-scald mechanism, it comes with a plastic safety clip that you slot over the boiling water control to physically stop tots in their tracks. Admittedly it’s not pretty, but the extra peace-of-mind is great for households with younger children.

There are three tank size options, two, four or seven litres. Linda went for four, which delivers eight cups of boiling water at a time. This is enough to fill a large pan of potatoes but, ‘We discovered last winter, not quite enough to fill four hot water bottles. It only takes five minutes to boil a fresh tank so, on balance, I think we got it right for our family of four,’ says Linda.

Linda chose the solid stainless-steel finish as that it’s the easiest to clean. But there’s also a tempting the gunmetal (shown), which is a bit different and not as harsh as black. There’s a small LED light at the base that will flash (impatiently) when it’s time to change the filter. If you’re more of a traditionalist when it comes to interiors, there’s a classic design for more traditional kitchens and a cute mini version if you want boiling water as an Add-on, without regular hot and cold. It comes with ambient filtered drinking water – add chilled for £375.

Linda’s QETTLE Signature Modern is an older model, which has a lever handle for the boiling water, but the new design comes with a round handle, with safety button, as standard. However, Qettle are happy to fit a lever handle by special request – usually from older folk who are a little less dextrous.

Best looking boiling water tap

Caple is a reasonably well-established player in the kitchen industry. It does a range of kitchen appliances, accessories, taps and sinks with a focus on minimalist, pared back aesthetics. They’re pretty well regarded in the trade, and well known for balancing quality with price to offer decent products for moderate budgets.

The Joya 3-in-1 offers a certain degree of flexibility, in that the controls aren’t integrated with the spout. This allows you to configure your tap set up to suit you and your space – you could go crazy and have both controls together and the spout on one side.

One control knob allows you to turn from off through cold to mixed to hot water. This means if you want standard mixed or hot water you have to have it running at full flow – this might be fine for you, but I personally like to control the flow rate myself, especially when washing my hands. The controls themselves are nice - sleek, modern with a knurled texture to allow for grip when hands are slippy.

The steaming water is controlled using the other knob. This requires you pushing a button at the back and then twisting. It’s fairly easy to use, yet tricky enough to stop young kids making any mistakes. The water auto shuts off if you release the handle, meaning you can’t leave it running. While I wouldn’t have a problem with this (boiling hot water unattended makes me nervous), if you’re rushing to fill a pan while doing something else, perhaps this might be a tiny niggle.

One thing to note is that the Joya isn’t claiming to deliver boiling water or even near-boiling water. At 90º it’s one of the coldest “boiling-water taps” I’ve included here. I do acknowledge that Caple calls this a steaming-water tap. It’s still going to get the job done in terms of filling pots and getting them pretty much to boiling, but you might notice that 10º when making a cup of tea.

The mid-sized 3L tank seems to be a good balance between enough capacity - it should do 120 cups per hour, so fine for even a busy household – without taking up acres of space under your sink. The tank itself displays the temperature of the water, and has a control to increase and decrease it. You’ll also need a bit of space for the filters, which by the way will set you back almost £170 - I find that a bit eye watering compared to many others.

Best boiling water tap for small households

Lusso Stone is a UK-based supplier that was established around 10 years ago, and aims to bring “attainable luxury” to homes. Certainly they have an excellent reputation, and they offer five-year guarantees on their taps, which shows their own confidence in their products. Their timeless style looks great in modern and period properties. Indeed, the Filtara comes in a modern handle design, or a classic lever design. You can also opt for a pull-out tap on this model. I tested the standard spout with a modern handle.

The lever on the right side controls the hot and cold mixer tap, as well as the filtered water. I found the mechanism pretty intuitive. Pull the lever out and rotate for the mixer tap, or pull it straight towards you for cold filtered water. The other side of the tap is the boiling water tap. Here you press in a safety button and turn the dial towards you to allow the water to flow. You can leave this running hands free. This would be a handy feature in a busy kitchen.

The tank is 2.5L, which is smaller than most on this roundup. But I found that it’s more than adequate for a medium-sized household, even if you’re all busy making breakfast or cooking a big meal. It takes around eight minutes to boil the tank again.

The tank itself is a moderate size; 225x201x161mm. I liked the easy-to-view controls, which display the temperature clearly on the box. While Lusso Stone says this boiler reaches 100º, really the flow rate is more like 98º. You’ve got to decide whether those two degrees matter to you. You might find it doesn’t make the strongest cup of tea, although my friend who’s had the Lusso Stone tap for two years claims she’s never noticed the difference.

Best boiling water tap for energy efficiency

At almost 100º when the water comes out and fairly decent-sized tanks, this Grohe Red Duo boiling water tap is great as a pot filler and for intermittent cups of tea during the day too. The high J-shaped spout means filling even massive pans should be no issue at all.

At close to 100º and allowing for a little cooling as the water flows from the tank to the spout, it’s going to make a great cup of coffee and a pretty decent cup of tea too. As I personally like my tea very strong, I’d find it a bit deflating to not have boiling water on my tea bag when I’d paid almost £1,500 for a tap – but this may matter less to you.

The boiler is where the Grohe Red Duo really excels though. It has an efficiency rating of A when used to generate hot water. This is made possible as the relatively petite titanium boiler is so well insulated, keeping the water at temperature for longer without having to reheat. There is also a holiday mode, where you can flick a switch and it’ll reduce the temperature of the boiler to 60º.

Time saving is a big tick for this tap too. Grohe claims that a litre of water takes four minutes to boil on an induction hob – while this tap is good to go straight away once it’s initially heated through the tank of water.

As a parent, I love the safety feature on the Red Duo. To access near-boiling water, you have to press the button on the right of the tap until it goes red, then hold the button down to deliver the water. The tap also doesn’t ever splutter boiling water, which might be a safety concern for you. This is thanks to the aerator inbuilt, which ensures a smooth stream of water. The boiling water only flows when the button is depressed, which is great for peace of mind but a tad faffy if you’re regularly filling large pots of water.

Best boiling water tap with a pull out spout

The Quooker Flex has many of the same features as the Quooker Fusion, but with a pull-out spout. While this may not seem like a huge deal right now, as I surveyed many kitchens during testings with large sinks, many of the proud owners of boiling-water taps bemoaned the same issue: the tap didn’t stretch around the sink when cleaning it. The Quooker Flex solves this issue.

You may be concerned that flicking boiling water – and the Flex is true boiling water for the boiler heats the water to 106º – is a bit dangerous. But the safety function automatically switches off the boiling water when the hose is pulled out, even if it’s running at the time.

I had a hands-on demo in a showroom of the Flex in action, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed. But many people find the controls a bit fiddly, especially with the Cube add on: press down the safety lock twice to access boiling water, press it down once for filtered fizzy water. As a friend said to me, “I end up with a lot of fizzy cold cups of tea”. You can also push and turn for cold filtered water.

Another thing I noticed was that the Quooker Flex spits and kicks out a lot of steam when in boiling water mode. This may be something you get used to, and feels less scary over time. Friends who regularly use it assure me that they have – and that the splutters are so light they don’t really scald.

Where the Flex – and Quooker overall – really excel in is the temperature of their boiling water. It’s kept at 106º in the tank, so even if the water cools slightly in its journey through the spout, you’re still getting 100º. This is noticeable to a certain degree in cups of tea – they stay hot even after you add milk – and when filling pots for cooking.

The best affordable boiling water tap

Wodar is a dedicated hot-water tap specialist with a British design team on board. The brand designs with smaller kitchens in mind – the footprint of the tap and the boiler is relatively small. Despite being a smaller fish in the boiling-water pond, Wodar offers an impressive array of design and finish options.

The Wodar boiler is small here – 2.4L to be exact. I tested one out in my friend’s kitchen, who’s had it for a good eight months. They say they’ve never noticed it running out of hot water in this time – even when they hosted Christmas for a large family. Certainly 2.4L might sound petite in the world of boiling water taps, but actually it’s still much bigger than the domestic standard kettle (which is around 1.7L). I did notice after making around eight cups of tea, I could hear the boiler click on automatically. But then how often do you make eight cups of tea in one go? In case you’re wondering, the boiler was very quiet.

The boiler heats to 98º, which means it delivers water slightly cooler than this. I made cups of tea from this tap and didn’t notice the difference in taste, but it’s cool to drink immediately.

Most affordable boiling water tap

I tested this tap in a friend’s kitchen, and they said having had the Fohen tap has been a total game changer in their very busy household. Despite a relatively small 2.4L boiler, they claim they’ve never run out of hot water even when hosting Christmas lunch for extended family. And they loved the simplicity of this boiling-water tap – and reasonable price tag, too.

Certainly the Fohen is easy to use. Simply use the lever on the right to control the regular mixer tap. The right hand controls the boiling water – which comes out not quite boiling (more on that a bit later). There’s a spring safety lock on the boiling water side, meaning if you take your hand off the tap it pings back to off immediately. I had a hands-on demo with this, and it’s impressively responsive. My friend has three kids, and she’s said the only time someone has got hurt using it was when her husband stuck his hand directly under it to check if it was boiling hot water – ‘I mean, you’ve got to question the intelligence…’, she remarked wryly. The water flowed from the tap easily, with very little steam or splutter.

The one downside with this tap is making cups of tea – which my friend acknowledges might be a bit of a dealbreaker. ‘It’s not quite boiling hot, which means it doesn’t make very strong tea. I don’t mind that, but if you really cared about tea you might. I notice the difference when someone makes me a cup of tea from a kettle at their house these days,’ said my friend.

While my friend claimed this is the only downside she could think of for the Fohen tap, I noticed the handle isn’t knurled on the boiling water tap. Fohen do make other models that are knurled, but this particular one isn’t, which you might find a bit slippery, especially if you’re less dexterous.

How to choose a boiling water tap

The two main factors that are going to drive your decision in buying a boiling-water tap are probably price and design. There are now enough boiling-water or steaming-water taps on the market that there’s a range of price points. If you want add ons like filtered, chilled or bubbly water, you’re going to need to check this before you buy.

Design-wise, you want it to suit the overall look of your kitchen - ultra modern matt black in a Shaker-style kitchen might be a bit jarring. But in the design you also should like about the spout shape - J or U shaped taps are good for filling large pots, but might have too much height for a small sink, causing splattering. They also might not fit under low shelves or cabinets. A few boiling-water taps now come in pull-out designs. This is useful if you have a large sink, but it might just be an expensive add on if you’re not likely to use it much.

And with a boiling-water tap you also need to think about temperature and space. Not all so-called boiling-water taps deliver true boiling water - some are close to 100º and some are just “steaming” water. If you really care about having true boiling water (for it does make a better cup of tea) then interrogate this when choosing your tap. And then also look at the space of where you’re putting your boiler - they tend to go under the sink in the cabinet (and also require mains-water supply and a plug socket). Some boilers and filters take up a lot of space. Your supplier or builder should be able to advise you on if your chosen tap will work with your space.

FAQs

Are boiling water taps expensive to run?

How much it costs to run a boiling water tap takes some serious maths, so we've done that for you. But if you're in a rush, the long and short of it is that boiling water taps are cheaper to run than kettles, which are on average 2.5p per boil, compared to 10p to fully refill a 3 litre boiling water tank.

Is it a boiling water tap or hot water tap?

One of the biggest factors when buying is whether to get a tap that delivers true boiling water at 100°C or one that’s a fraction cooler, also known as an ‘instant hot water tap’. Check what you're getting in advance to avoid disappointment.

For some, such as herbal tea fans who argue that boiling water scorches delicate leaves, a tap delivering water that’s nearly but not quite boiling is preferable, or perhaps even a boiling water dispenser might suffice, something we discuss on our feature on boiling water taps vs hot water dispensers. These instant hot taps are often a little cheaper, and generally less spitty/steamy when they pour, too.

A couple of degrees makes little difference if you’re filling a saucepan to cook pasta or making up a hot water bottle, but true 100°C water is better for everything from making hot drinks straight from the tap, to sanitising dishcloths. The melting power of a true boiling water tap is also excellent for de-greasing roasting pans before they go in the dishwasher, and dissolving stock pots, jelly cubes, and softening instant noodles.

Nearly boiling water isn’t suitable for sterilising baby bottles or mixing formula either, so you should ensure you get one capable of 100°C if that’s one of your incentives for buying.

Throughout this buyer’s guide, we’ve outlined the water temperatures each tap delivers and called the water from the ones that are lower than 100°C ‘near-boiling’. You could also call it ‘kettle hot’.

Are boiling water taps safe?

If you're considering investing in the best boiling water tap and have young children or vulnerable people in your home (or even just visiting), you'll want to know if it's safe.

'Unlike kettles that can be spilt or are boiling to the touch, boiling water taps cannot be tipped, have cool-touch spouts and no trailing cables. They are all round sound investments for a safe, efficient and stylish kitchen,' says Quooker’s MD Stephen Johnson.

By law, boiling water taps must feature special safety mechanisms that make it difficult for little ones to access the boiling supply. These are usually push-lever safety locks, that require a two-step process to turn the boiling water on. Most shut off instantly the minute the lever is released, preventing you accidentally walking away from a tap that's pouring out steaming water.

It's also worth noting that the boiling water comes out of a separate hose to the regular hot and cold tap so your child won't get accidentally scalded by lingering boiling water in the spout when turning on the tap to wash their hands.

How do boiling water taps work?

It's a great question - so much so that we've written an entire feature on how boiling water taps work, including a run down of the basic features and boiling times generally.

If you want the short answer then boiling water taps vary in how they work, but most are connected to the hot and cold supply under your sink, with an extra connection to a mini boiler tank that also lives in the cupboard under the sink. You'll need a 13amp socket to power the boiler. Most can be fitted and maintained by a qualified plumber, which we delve into in our feature on whether boiling water taps are easy to install.

A boiling water tank will pass regular cold water through a filter before heating it to the desired temperature and storing it, ready to go. This creates a constant supply of boiling or near-boiling water, on-tap.

You probably won't empty the tank completely during daily use but if you do, it usually takes around three-eight minutes for the tank to be ready for use again (depending on tank size).

If you're undecided between tank sizes, and have the cupboard space, we'd recommend sizing up, not down. A tank with a capacity of around 2.4-3L should be sufficient for a family of four.