I've wanted a Zojirushi for a few months now. Heard really good things but also heard about the build up of scaling after some usage(I guess that depends on the type of water you use). I only drink black tea (using teabags - nothing fancy) so spending north of $100 seems overkill.
I've had a Zojirushi boiler for about 6 years and have only descaled it twice. It's very easy, you just dump some citric acid in there, set it to the cleaning cycle, and dump the water out. Rinse it a couple times to remove any extra citric acid, though that's only for flavor reasons; it's food-grade citric acid.
The instructions say to dump the water out every day and start fresh in the morning. I don't do that, because I am too lazy.
I've been meaning to buy a kettle, and this post made finally pull the trigger. I absolutely love my Zojirushi rice cooker, I have a Zojirushi thermos for my coffee which is perfect, and now I'm going to have a Zojirushi CV-DYC40 kettle. These (along with my Vitamix) are the only appliances I constantly take with me when I move.
I bought my wife the CV-DSC40 kettle. She drinks green and Jasmine and uses the water for her Bodum coffee press. The scaling is only for really hard water areas.
It is overkill if you don't use it all that much (we use and refill at least once a day). But if you're a hardcore hot beverage drinker, it's truly the Cadillac of kettles.
Me too. The liner being "non-stick" is a bit concerning, but it seems like glass or uncoated metals are impossible to find.
I imagine it has to do with scaling, discoloration, and/or lifetime. I have stayed with my old stovetop kettle until now, simply because it has no plastic/silicone/rubber in contact with the water.