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Kitchen · Zojirushi · 2016

Zojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer

Not a kettle at all — 4 liters held at temperature all day, dispensed by a button instead of poured.

Stainless shrugs off acid cycles; plastic yellows — #2

Overall

7.3

out of 10

Axis scores

Kitchen is scored on these 5 axes. The total is their plain average — nothing is weighted.

Zojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — axis scores out of 10Horizontal bar chart of editorial scores out of 10 across 5 axes. Bars run from a shared zero baseline; longer is better. Zojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer: Performance 6.6, Value 5.4, Durability 8.7, Ease of use 7.8, Quietness 8.0.PerformanceZojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — Performance 6.6 out of 106.6ValueZojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — Value 5.4 out of 105.4DurabilityZojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — Durability 8.7 out of 108.7Ease of useZojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — Ease of use 7.8 out of 107.8QuietnessZojirushi CD-WCC40 Micom Water Boiler & Warmer — Quietness 8.0 out of 108.0Editorial score out of 10 — higher is better
  • Performance — How well it does the core job
  • Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
  • Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
  • Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
  • Quietness — Operating noise — a higher score means quieter

Specs

Format
Countertop boiler with electric dispensing
Keep warm
160, 175, 195 and 208°F
Capacity
4 liters
Power
700 watts

As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.

Is it for you

Buy it if

  • A household that wants hot water continuously available rather than on request
  • Wrists and shoulders that should not be lifting a full kettle several times a day
  • Loose-leaf tea at fixed temperatures without setting anything each time

Skip it if

  • You boil water twice a day — this draws power around the clock to earn its keep
  • Counter space is scarce, or the outlet it needs is already spoken for
  • You want a fresh rolling boil the moment you decide you want one

Nothing about owning this resembles owning a kettle. It stays plugged in, it holds four liters at a temperature you chose weeks ago, and you get hot water by putting a cup under the spout and pressing a bar. Boiling stops being an event you wait through, which is the entire argument for it and also the reason it makes no sense in a household that wants hot water twice a day.

The 700 watts is the trade. Filling it cold and asking for a full boil is a wait long enough that you will find something else to do, and owner reports put it around the half-hour mark for a full reservoir. It is an appliance you fill in the morning rather than one you interrupt, and anyone expecting kettle timings will find the first week frustrating.

Dispensing runs off an electric pump, so an unplugged unit is a large insulated jug you cannot pour from without lifting the whole thing. There is also an unlock button that has to be pressed before the dispense bar does anything, and it defeats roughly every guest on the first attempt. A slower café drip mode exists for pour-over, though the stream is still wider than a gooseneck spout gives you.

The sound scheme resets to its default chirping whenever the unit loses power, which owners report as the single most irritating thing about living with one. A brief outage while you are away means coming home to a boiler that announces itself again.

Scale is the part that requires discipline. A four-liter reservoir you never look into accumulates quietly, and the cleaning cycle expects citric acid rather than the vinegar most people reach for. Longer term, the reports that do surface concern the pump and the seal around the dispensing path rather than the electronics, and a few owners of the smaller sibling describe rust spotting at the bottom of the pot.

Set against every other entry here, it is silent for twenty-three hours a day, because holding water at 195°F makes no noise at all. That is a different claim from being a quiet kettle, and worth understanding before the score is read as one.

Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.