Here at Our Taap, we believe the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s not just the functional room where you cook food, it’s the creative space where you share quality time with your friends and family.
In your kitchen, you can treasure moments of talking, cooking, eating, drinking, playing, and dancing. Especially dancing - we’re big on that here. Kitchen disco, anyone?
The history of the kitchen - from cook fires to the heart of a home
It makes sense that at the heart of your kitchen is your drinking water - so essential to everyday health and wellbeing. There’s some instinct within us to gather where we find our water - gather to talk and share. Just as we recognise those communal water cooler moments at work, the kitchen is where you’ll find them at home.
It hasn’t always been like that. The concept of the kitchen as a social space has evolved in modern times. Back in the day, we’d draw our water from the nearest well and the kitchen was wherever the open fire to cook over was. It doubled as the place to gather and keep warm. In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the kitchen was a functional space separate from your house. Where the Romans adopted central heating systems, other Europeans stuck to the hearth for their warmth, but their kitchen remained separate from their living area because of the fire hazard.
With the innovations of the chimney, oven and separate boilers for water in the 1600s, it was only the wealthy who fully integrated their kitchen spaces into the home - and they employed staff to maintain them. The good old kitchen sink didn’t come around until the 1800s, but it wasn’t until the 20th century that municipal water systems enabled decent plumbing and sanitation.
By the 1920s, the now old-fashioned role of the housewife took off where servants weren’t affordable, and mains electricity and gas boosted the functionality of small kitchens for city living. It was the 1950s expansion into the suburbs that allowed for larger, more luxurious spaces for the middle classes.
Open-plan, fitted kitchens finally became a thing in the 80s and 90s, but they didn’t reach their full potential until the 21st century, when kitchens blossomed into the social spaces we see more of today. Where homes had separate dining rooms or small lounges, we knocked through to create our ideal open living spaces. Kirsty Allsopp may have popularised these sledgehammer tactics. No longer the solitary domain of the cook, the kitchen became the place to party. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - we thank you.
Embrace a social kitchen for improved wellbeing
Challenges, as always, continue - it wouldn’t be life without them. Time and money are always going to test us. To put distractions aside, digital and otherwise, and simply sit and eat together might sometimes seem impossible. We may strive for a work-life balance, and that might look different to everyone, but time in the kitchen doesn’t have to be work - it should be all about life. That’s why we’ve literally knocked down those walls to make room for more. That’s why our kitchens have gradually become more and more integrated into our homes, and now they’re the very heart of them.
Naturally, we’re going to encourage healthy hydration - it’s what we do. But for good reason - drinking enough water is essential as breathing. Not drinking enough water can lead to so many avoidable health issues. If the taste of tap water is off-putting, or the duty to drink six to eight cupfuls a day is seen as terrible a chore as having to draw it from an outside well, then a trip to the kitchen becomes just another joyless function.
Seven simple ways to make the most of your kitchen space
Our Taap exists to level up the way you drink water, in the same way an amazing oven can elevate your cooking. When the simple tap of a button grants you instantly chilled or hot water, and when the smart safety features allow your kids complete independence to help themselves to an unlimited supply of triple-filtered water that beats the quality of the bottled stuff, then the act of dispensing and drinking can become pure pleasure. And that philosophy extends to every other thing your kitchen allows room for. Turn it into joy.
Something in our DNA encourages us to bond around fire and water. It’s never just been about staving off cold and thirst - we feel the need to create and enforce social bonds. Bonding is about sharing, digging a bit deeper, indulging in conversation, as well as initially throwaway moments of silliness that somehow stick. If we’re lacking this, we just need to flick a mental switch, change a habit or two, and get creative.
Here are seven simple ways to get that kitchen heartbeat going:
- Hold kitchen conversations
If you’ve slipped into becoming the sole kitchen dweller, hold regular kitchen conversations. They don’t have to be formal, they just have to become habit. A little trick to getting someone uncommunicative to open up is to occupy their hands or front of minds. If you’re cooking, get them to chop, or read out recipe instructions. Once they’re comfortable and in the moment with you, drop in some seemingly spontaneous questions that encourage meaningful responses. If it’s apparently by-the-by, it defuses any sense of duty or confrontation. Pretty soon you’ll find your loved ones sidling up for another nice little chat with you in the kitchen.
- Break down the divides
Encourage your kids into the kitchen by having them either do their homework or share screen time with you. Helping with school work is their reward for sitting down at the kitchen table with you. Getting them to share stuff they’re enjoying on their phones or tablets breaks down that digital divide. Ask them to show you what makes them laugh or what new bit of music they’re into. Show them what makes you laugh, or play them a clip of an old show or a bit of music you enjoyed when you were their age.
This also works with fellow adults, of course. Share something that happened at work. Share something seen online that’s funny or thought-provoking. Talk about what’s in the news, share some gossip. Do it while prepping a meal, while sharing a drink. Water cooler moments at home, remember?
- Share out the kitchen jobs
Don’t separate tasks between each other, share them. Whether it’s cooking, making a cuppa or emptying the dishwasher - help each other out. Doing this while conversing is great, but don’t feel the pressure. Let these moments breathe, you might even be silent, you might both be singing along to a mutually loved playlist. Just do whatever needs doing together. This isn’t ‘working’ in the kitchen - it’s life. Infuse it with joy.
- Turn your fridge into your kids’ gallery
Let your fridge become your living museum of family life, your interactive art gallery of love. This isn’t a big, bland appliance that keeps your food fresh, it’s a blank canvas to keep precious memories fresh. All you need is Blu Tack or magnets and a lack of judgement. Anything that captures a moment worth remembering goes. Every time you come to the fridge to grab a drop of milk, you’ll come away with a little tug on your heart.
- Clear off the kitchen counter and play games together
Phones and tablets down, laptops shut, TV off. Clear the kitchen table of condiments (because that’s where you regularly sit and eat together, right? Just checking!) and make room for an old school board game. Okay, it could also be an online game, but ensure it’s multi-player and inclusive for all. Why wait until the extended family comes round at Christmas? Do it on a random Tuesday evening when there’s nothing else on. Slyly shift things so that Tuesday magically becomes free more regularly. Delegate the game choice.
If the screens prove impossible to put aside, turn scrolling into a game. Bring Name That Tune to your kitchen table (the old ones are always the best, right?). Guess the film quote, name the celebrity… The possibilities are endless. Think pub quiz, then turn it into kitchen quiz.
- Challenge your family to drink more water
Gamify hydration. “Make water fun” sounds pretty trite, but there - we’ve said it. One innovation we love, that we wish we’d come up with ourselves, is the motivational water bottle. Whether it’s the simple measuring stick printed up the side or something a tad more smart tech, these reusable bottles are great at getting competitive or achievement-minded kids to up their water intake and hit the daily goal of six to eight glasses. Again, this isn’t just for kids, it keeps anyone intent on winning a reward coming back to the kitchen. All you have to do is figure out a suitable reward.
- Have a boogie at the kitchen disco
Yes, we will not give up on this one. You don't need to hang up a disco ball and install flashing lights - you just need sounds. And you don’t need to arrange it, let it be spontaneous - because they can be the best parties, right? It’s all about letting go and bringing the fun back into the kitchen. You could be cooking with your partner, or with the kids and, because you’ve already got the music on in the background, a favourite song comes on and you get the urge to wave your utensils in the air like you just don’t care. Do it! You make a mess, so what? Ride the moment. Dance like your inner child wants to, and show your actual kids that sometimes it’s okay to be silly. And what’s happened? Your kitchen is your space for living.
These are all great tried and tested ways to turn your kitchen into a space for living with your loved ones. We’ve already knocked the literal walls down, now it’s up to all of us to knock the figurative ones down, too.
As a spieces, we’ve evolved to bring the essential functions of fire and water safely into the heart of our homes. While cooking, chatting, playing or dancing - we can now reach across, press a button and, in an instant, fuel up on pure, healthy water - the very stuff we need to keep going. Gathering around this essential source helps to not only form your bond with family and friends, but strengthen it. The kitchen is the heart of your home, and Our Taap is at the heart of your kitchen.
