I bought this little kettle to use to boil water for my tea when I was staying in a hotel recently. It is lightweight and collapsible, which made it easy to pack, and it boils water very rapidly. I did read the instructions before using, and noted that they said to boil water in it, dump, rinse, and repeat a few times before using water boiled in this thing. I did that prior to my trip, and had no issue with any foul taste or weird "mouthfeel" in my tea. The water I boiled in it looked and smelled OK, and my tea tasted fine. I did use bottled water in it while traveling, and used filtered water when prepping it at home prior to travel, so I don't know if someone using unfiltered tap water would have the same results. I noted that some reviewers complained that they used the kettle once or twice, and that it then stopped working, and/or took a long time to boil water. It is a dual voltage kettle, but I noted when reading the instructions and examining the item that, to change the voltage, you basically have to turn a screw on the bottom of the kettle. I checked mine, and noticed it was set to the correct voltage, but that may not have necessarily been the case for everyone. The instructions did mention that if the kettle was set to the wrong voltage for your power source, that it might take longer for the water to boil. Also, if I had traveled out of the country, to somewhere that uses different electrical voltage, I would have had to change the voltage on my kettle manually prior to travel (or carried a screwdriver to change it after arrival.) I can see how this function might be easy to miss, or forget, and I have had many dual voltage electrical items that switch voltage automatically, or at least in an easier and more obvious way that doesn't require tools, so I think this part could have been done better. The kettle also claims to have boil dry protection, but when I used it in my hotel room, it appeared to have a "keep warm" function that I believe would have happily boiled the kettle dry if I had not been paying sufficient attention. Luckily, I happened to notice it seeming to start boiling again shortly after I had poured all (or most) of the water out, so I turned it off after that. Because of that, I did knock a couple of stars off the "Safety Features" rating. I would say not to rely on the boil-dry protection feature working correctly; just switch the kettle off after use, and it should be fine for repeated uses. Given that I only boiled clean water in it, a simple rinse with clean water appeared sufficient, and then I just let it air-dry. I did have to prop the lid open with something after use, to allow the residual water inside to evaporate. It would have been nice if the kettle had some mechanism that could be set to hold the lid open if needed for letting it dry between uses, but this wasn't a big deal, and would not have stopped me from purchasing the product. All in all, it did what I needed it to do, and the price was not bad, so I was overall pleased with my purchase, and would recommend this as an international travel kettle. (Just make sure you set the correct voltage prior to travel, or carry a small screwdriver!)
