SHOW STREAMS and EXPLAIN <query> statements run against the KSQL server that the KSQL client is connected to. They don't communicate directly with Kafka. CREATE STREAM WITH <topic> and CREATE TABLE WITH <topic> write metadata to the KSQL command topic. Persistent queries based on CREATE STREAM AS SELECT and CREATE TABLE AS SELECT read and write to Kafka topics. Non-persistent queries based on SELECT that are stateless only read from Kafka topics, for example SELECT * FROM foo WHERE. Non-persistent queries that are stateful read and write to Kafka, for example, COUNT and JOIN. The data in Kafka is deleted automatically when you terminate the query with CTRL-C.