if the sun was a pot of boiling water, the steam would be the solar wind (or is it vice versa?)
The solar wind is the super hot atoms which have obtained excape velocity and are speeding away from the surface of the sun. Because most of the hydrogen is ionized on the sun's "surface" the wind is electrically conductive and is greatly influenced by magnetic fields - like the one the Earth has. (of course the sun has a huge and complicated magnetic field).
