Do you use Vacuum thermos
It's freezing today, lets have a nice cup of tea. You turn the tap and water flushes into your kettle, plug into socket, then the kettle start sizzling and then make loud noises, and water begins boiling. Then you take a tea bag and put into the cup, and pour enough boiled water into it, stir a little bit, leave the tea bag soak for a while, then maybe you squeeze the tea bag and through it away. Milk? Sugar? Nice a cup of tea! Then you leave your kettle on the kitchen table.
When we moved to UK, we lived in rented houses, most of these houses have kettle, toaster, enough plates and knives and forks, but I have never seen a VACUUM thermos. So I even suspected English peoples use thermos at all, till I saw one on a café counter.
In China, we normally have at least one vacuum thermos to store boiled water. When I studied in a university, lived in student accommodation, there are no cooking facilities in accommodation, even kettles are banned because of health and safety reason (maybe not the fire alarm, but electricity bills). The only place where we can get our boiled water is the public canteen. It is an honour to get a thermos of boiled water for a girl, if you are allowed to do so, means the girl actually confirms that you are dating!
We have many riddles of Vacuum thermos, one of them is: glass house, mercury wall, outside cool, inside hot. This is very easy to guess, but it's included in one edition of primary Chinese text book. We can see from this case that how important and popular the thermos is for Chinese daily life.
The most popular thermos in China are glass vacuum with a double glass liner and vacuum insulation liner. This structure is good enough to provide superior thermal insulation to preserve optimal temperature. The result is a cool to touch lightweight container that retains heat and cold longer than any other insulated product. But the glass is quite fragile, you have to handle with care and ease, because they are very easy to break. Our thermos normally had plastic or bamboo holder. So when the thermos tumbles or squeezed or just fall off from the table accidentally, there will be a frightening big "BANG", such as a bomb or No. 1 fireworks.
Recently more and more stainless steel vacuum thermos on Chinese market and household. Stainless steel vacuum insulation virtually eliminates temperature change by creating an airless vacuum space between two stainless steel walls. The results is an insulation layer that performs better than any other, A superior insulated container you can depend on to keep your beverages hotter, or cold.
There is one stainless steel vacuum thermos on my table, we use it to make Ginseng tea. We cut pieces of ginseng, and pour very hot boiled water in it, and keep it for as long as 12 hours.
Nowadays, everybody likes to talk about global warming, and tries to save energy. Those tips given out by GREEN FORCE TEAM or the local government include "always boil just enough water for tea". How about boil enough water for tea and keep the left in the Vacuum thermos for next time? I think government should give out vacuum thermos for free instead of just colourful leaflets good enough for the bin.
