The Fellow Aiden Precision Coffee Maker Is Your Favorite Barista In Machine Form

Fellow Aiden Precision Coffee Maker

We all have that one friend who goes on and on about how their specially sourced coffee requires a particular method to extract the optimal flavor. How the temperature and timing of the pour can be the difference between a sublime cup of caffeinated goodness or diner-level swill.

And to be fair, they're not wrong.

Getting the most out of good coffee is a simple equation that can be hard to master. You need heat and time to get the good stuff out of your coffee, the floral botanicals and flavorful compounds, while leaving behind the oils and extracts that make coffee bitter. To do it right, you need to experiment with temperatures and methods, usually via pour-over, where you let the grounds bloom and then apply water, heated to a specific temperature, at specific intervals over a specific period of time.

It takes time, patience, research, and attention to detail, something that's often fleeting when you're trying to do all this at 6 in the morning. And when you change beans, you have to start the experiments all over again.

Or you could just plug in the Aiden Precision Coffee Maker from Fellow.

Aiden is the first automatic coffee maker from Fellow, a company that I've trusted for quite a while to deliver well-designed, enthusiast-focused, stylish coffee tech. Their kettle and burr grinder are both permanent fixtures on my kitchen countertop.

And it looks like the Aiden will be too…but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Aiden Precision Coffee Maker is a 1.5L (that's around six and a half cups) capacity automatic, app-connected drip coffee maker. It has scheduling capabilities as well as the ability to create and save coffee profiles. It also switches between small and large-batch brewing via a unique "shower head" and two different-sized brew baskets.

App-enabled, though that's currently underutilized

The app, currently, doesn't do much other than give you an easy way to set the time, register your brewer, give it a fun name, and update the device's firmware. Future updates such as scheduling and creating profiles from the app are promised.

My first impression on unboxing the Aiden Precision Coffee Maker is that it's by far the nicest looking coffee maker I've had on my counter. I've been through a lot of curved, glossy black plastic devices in my day and this is clearly a response to that aesthetic.

Most of Fellow's other products, the Ode Burr Coffee Grinder, the STAGG kettle bases, are unapologetically square with a textured matte black finish. That same brutalistic geometric motif is carried over to the Aiden which commands attention like a coffee-brewing monolith. Even the curve of the carafe is swallowed by the straight lines of the brewer.

The double-walled carafe is so much better than any glass carafe.

Speaking of, the hefty, double-walled metal carafe keeps your coffee warm for hours without needing a warming plate (the death knell for any carefully brewed cup of Joe). In practice, I can confirm that coffee remains piping hot, even if you hit your snooze one or two (or three times). The only time it couldn't hold on to the heat was when there was around half a cup left in the carafe. But it was still at least warm and drinkable, as opposed to the burnt puddle of sludge it could've been.

There's also a slim rectangular water reservoir built into the side of the machine. It's fully removable, making refilling easy (especially for me, since I like to use my hurricane-supply gallon water jugs post-season).

But the Aiden isn't all square. The control elements, the screen and knob, are both perfectly round and set in line with each other. Overall the look of the coffee maker is satisfying in a way that few kitchen devices are.

The Aiden comes with two baskets—a 1-3 cup single-serving cone and a 3-6 cup basket. The shower head converts from single-serve to batch brewing with a simple twist. The basket itself is sealed with a silicon gasket, ensuring that steam doesn't leak out. This unfortunate side effect is that you have to manually wipe down the shower head after brewing because condensation remains well after brewing.

The Aiden comes with several brewing methods pre-loaded. There's light, medium, dark, and cold brew profiles that have been tested by Fellow's coffee experts and should be good enough for most coffees. There's also an "instant brew" mode that simply brews whatever you have in the basket using all the water in the reservoir. There are also pre-loaded, coffee-specific brew profiles based on their text-to-order coffee drop subscription. The promise being that these will change over time to match the current drops.

And if all you do is use the built-in profiles, you'll be able to create a wonderful cup of coffee that's full of flavor, with impressive nuance that's lost in most automatic brew methods.

But if you're a coffee nerd, you can do so much more.

The Aiden lets you create your own brewing profiles which let you control every component of the brew process: the water to coffee ratio, water temperature, bloom time, number of pulses, pulse time, and time between pulses. You can even adjust the temperature for each pulse of water, emulating the declining temperature of a pour-over extraction.

The screen is crowded, but the brew control is unrivaled.

Essentially, you can program the Aiden to act exactly as you would if you were standing at the counter with a pour-over kit, timer in one hand, kettle in the other. At the end of the day good pour-over coffee is just about adjusting ratio, time, and temperature until you discover the exact method for getting the most out of your chosen coffee. You can lock that into the Aiden coffee maker and have it recreate those settings every single time without variance. It leads to a much more consistent, and convenient, coffee experience.

The showerhead ensures that all the grounds have even coverage. Sure, it may not be able to emulate a swirling pour (clockwise for one bloom, counterclockwise for the next) but after drinking coffee made in the Aiden for the past month, I can tell you that all of that is mostly performative.

The coffee I've made in the Aiden is the best I've ever had from a countertop machine. It's some of the best coffee I've ever had, period.

My previous machine, the Spinn, would grind beans to order and then extract coffee with centrifugal force. It was a loud and slightly chaotic way to start the day, akin to have a Starbucks on your counter. The Aiden on the other hand is more like your favorite local coffee shop, letting you choose various coffees each time and having you find a seat while they take a few minutes prepping the perfect cup. Even better? It’s quiet enough that you can set it to brew while you’re asleep, waking up to fresh coffee like magic.

My only quibble with the Aiden coffee maker is that the app functionality is nonexistent. As cute as the circular jog wheel is, having to enter a name for your schedules and programs is a pain. Being able to create coffee profiles and programs in the app and sending them to the coffee maker would be enormously beneficial. And the app does say that functionality is coming. Hopefully sooner than later.

The only other issue I've had is ensuring that the showerhead actually dries out between brews. While the silicone gasket is great for keeping steam away from the underside of your cabinets, it also traps all that moisture in the basket area. You'll need to dry things off before you prep your grounds for the next day.

You need a little bit of extra hardware to get the best results.

And I suppose that could be a third complaint, that unlike the Spinn (Aiden's closest competitor), you can't just drop in a load of beans and walk away for a couple of weeks, you need to do daily setup. But I prefer Fellow's approach. Their Ode Burr Grinder grinds beans more consistently than I've ever seen and their Atmos electric vacuum sealing container keeps beans as fresh as if I'd kept them sealed in the bag. The silicone gasket keeps grounds fresh enough overnight that I've not woken up to a stale cup.

The Aiden Precision Coffee Maker isn't cheap. Like most Fellow products, it commands a premium. But it all depends on how you compare it. If you pit it against standard drip coffee makers, which, it's quite expensive at $365 (or $603 if you bundle it with a second-generation Ode Burr Grinder). Though $1 per day is way cheaper than paying a barista at your local shop.

But among app-enabled coffee makers, that's practically a bargain. Even the first-gen Spinn coffee maker is nearly $50 more than the Aiden + Ode bundle. And in my experience with the two machines, the Aiden provides more consistent, more flavorful coffee. It's a smart coffee maker that doesn't take the art of making coffee completely out of your hands. It encourages experimentation and tweaking to get just the right cup. The Aiden is essentially your favorite barista, in machine form.

Find out more on the Fellow website.

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