Blew my mind when I finally read mine too, I had been dumping tap water in there for years without a second thought. What gets me is the manual probably says to descale every few months and I was out here going two or three years between cleanings, just wondering why my coffee tasted off. Once you start reading that stuff you realize the kettle was never the problem, it was everything going into it and how long you let it build up. Makes you wonder what else around the house you have been using wrong this whole time because nobody ever bothers to read the little book that comes with it.