Fellow Aiden: The New King of the Coffee Makers

I’ve been testing the Fellow Aiden batch brewer for several months now, brewing countless cups and doing blind taste tests against competitors like the Moccamaster. The results? Quite surprising.

Instead of rehashing all the technical specs you can find elsewhere, I want to focus on what actually matters: how it performs in daily life, and whether it makes better coffee than other solid drip coffee makers like the Moccamaster and Breville Precision Brewer (spoiler alert: it does).

However, it’s not without its drawbacks (particularly in the app and user experience), which we’ll delve into shortly.

Design and Build Quality

The Aiden looks exactly like what you’d expect from Fellow – sleek, matte black, with that minimalist aesthetic they’re known for. The round display with its colorful background adds a nice touch to an otherwise simple design.

I’m not completely sold on the build quality though. It’s mostly plastic and feels much lighter than I expected for a $350 machine. The water reservoir lid feels particularly flimsy – I’m not sure it’ll hold up after years of daily use. Construction-wise, it’s more similar to Fellow’s budget Opus grinder than their sturdy Ode grinder.

That said, I expect Fellow will support this machine well since it’s one of their flagship products.

Carafe and Compatibility

The Fellow Aiden comes with a single black thermal carafe designed for batch brewing, but offers flexibility in how you use the system.

By the way, this carafe is actually (unlike the rest of the device) heavy and sturdy.

The carafe will keep coffee warm for several hours without requiring a heating plate.

In terms of heat retention, the thermal carafe performs well.

Coffee remains hot for 1-2 hours without issues – and in my test was very similar to the Moccamaster with its hot plate here. I took temperature readings at 50 and 120 minutes, and both batches were around 70 degrees celsius at the end without losing much temperature, since the end of the brew cycle.

This absence of a heating plate is, in my opinion, actually extremely beneficial.

A regular coffee maker’s hot plate can start “cooking” your brew within just 5–10 minutes, degrading the flavour fast. It creates that infamous “coffee maker taste” — only rivalled by the dreaded “stale thermos funk” when it comes to ruining a good cup.

Another advantage of the Aiden’s design is that without a hot plate, you’re not limited to using only the included carafe. You can brew directly into a cup, your favorite manual pour-over carafe, or any other vessel that fits under the brew basket, even one made of plastic should you wish so.

Most of the time during my testing I have been using my current favorite carafe, the Avensi Cyclone. It’s just a lot more nimble, and since I usually brew sub 0.5 liter batches, it makes integrating an auto drip coffee maker into my daily life more natural.

Carafe Compatibility Restrictions

Despite this flexibility, the Aiden’s software imposes some frustrating restrictions. If you want to use a custom dripper like the Gabi Dripmaster A or other small ones that fit inside the brewer you have to use the larger basket insert to fit it.

But if you do that the machine will force you to select the bulky thermal carafe no matter what – it will not let you brew without the thermal carafe in place! It has a sensor apparently. Weird, but a firmware update could fix this quickly.

Concentration Gradient Issues

James Hoffmann flagged an important downside in his review; the Aiden’s carafe has a fundamental design flaw that competitors solved years ago. It lacks the funnel design in the lid that other brewers use to properly mix coffee during brewing.

The result is a significant concentration gradient where coffee at the bottom can be nearly twice as strong as coffee at the top. This means that if you’re serving big batches, you’ll need to manually stir your batch before serving to achieve consistent cups—an unnecessary extra step that undermines the convenience factor of an automatic brewer.

However, if you’re brewing smaller batches, like say 0.5 L, then you’ll probably be okay by just swirling the coffee inside the carafe back and forth.

Brewing Performance

This is where things get interesting. Despite my skepticism about the plastic construction, my first brews hinted that this machine might be hiding something special. What followed completely changed what I thought was possible for automatic coffee brewers.

Temperature Control: The Game-Changer

The biggest difference between the Aiden and pretty much every other batch brewer is its temperature control.

Most coffee machines, even expensive ones like the Moccamaster, brew at a fixed temperature (around 92-94°C). The Aiden lets me set temperatures from 50°C to 99°C. What’s really impressive is that I can program different temperatures for each brewing phase.

To check if this feature was actual engineering or just marketing, I attached temperature probes to verify the claims. Surprisingly, the Aiden hit each target temperature with impressive accuracy. It even handled an alternating hot-cold-hot-cold sequence (50°C → 90°C → 50°C → 90°C) without much deviation.

From Technology to Taste: The Real Test

Temperature control means nothing if it doesn’t make better coffee. This is where the Aiden really surprised me.

I did a side-by-side test with the Moccamaster, starting with a light-roasted Ethiopian, which are usually tough for automatic brewers to do justice. The Aiden produced bright, floral notes that I usually only get from careful manual brewing. Good start, but not definitive.

The real eye-opener came with medium roasts – beans that often turn bitter in automatic brewers. I programmed a declining temperature profile starting at 93°C and gradually dropping to 88°C throughout the brew.

The difference was obvious. The coffee had all the chocolate and nutty notes you’d want from a medium roast, but without the harsh bitterness that usually comes with them in batch brewing. The declining temperature extracted the good stuff while minimizing the bitter compounds that emerge at higher temperatures.

To confirm this wasn’t just in my head, I did several blind taste tests against the Moccamaster using identical coffee, water, and grind settings. I could easily identify the Aiden’s brew by its smoother feel and cleaner finish. With medium roasts especially, the Aiden produced soft, focused cups while the Moccamaster brews had a lingering bitterness.

My refractometer backed this up – the Aiden consistently hit extraction percentages between 20-21%, which is excellent for an automatic brewer. More importantly, these high extractions tasted clean and balanced, without the harshness that usually comes with high extraction.

Water Distribution and Agitation

Temperature control isn’t the only factor in the Aiden’s performance. After watching dozens of brewing cycles, I noticed another critical advantage: water distribution.

Most automatic brewers struggle with evenly saturating the coffee bed. The Moccamaster, for instance, requires you to rotate the basket during brewing for best results. Left alone, it creates uneven saturation that compromises extraction.

The Aiden’s shower head design distributes water remarkably evenly across the entire coffee bed. This creates optimal agitation that ensures all grounds extract uniformly, without needing any manual intervention. A typical coffee maker will favor certain parts of the brew bed and start to “dig a hole”. This will affect extraction and create a mix of over and under-extraction.

Through my 15 years experience of brewing pour over, I’ve found that proper agitation is probably the most underappreciated but crucial factor in coffee brewing.

Too little and you get uneven extraction; too much and you over-extract bitter compounds. The Aiden seems to hit that perfect middle ground – creating just enough turbulence for even extraction without going overboard. Many baristas and home-baristas actually do a worse job than the Aiden here.

Small Batches to Big Pots: Versatility

Another area where the Aiden stands out is its ability to maintain quality across different batch sizes. I tested everything from single cups to 1.5L batches and found surprisingly consistent results throughout.

This versatility comes partly from the two different basket options included – a cone for single-serve brewing and a flat basket for larger batches. Each is designed to optimize extraction for its intended volume, and the difference is noticeable. And partly, from the adjustable profiles where you can have for example 5 programmed pulses. These seem to scale much better with the Aiden compared to regular drip coffee makers that will just spit out water erratically.

The small-batch performance is particularly impressive compared to the Moccamaster, which struggles with anything less than half a liter. With the Aiden, I could confidently brew a single cup that maintained the same quality as a full carafe – something few batch brewers can do.

User Experience and Interface

The Aiden’s interface is where my enthusiasm starts to fade. You navigate everything with a single click wheel, which looks nice but creates a clunky menu system that requires too much scrolling. I found myself frustrated by the lack of a back button or shortcuts. Creating and naming custom profiles via the click wheel is unnecessarily tedious.

As you get deeper into using the Aiden – trying different profiles and saving multiple settings – it becomes hard to keep track of differences between them. You can’t see all the details of a saved brew profile unless you open the app or dig into edit settings. This is frustrating when you just want to quickly check specifics like bloom time or temperature changes for each pulse.

The Fellow Aiden App Needs Work

The Fellow Aiden app has serious issues. For some reason, I have to log in every single time I open it – something no other app I use requires. On top of that, I need to grant permissions every time I log in, which is equally unusual.

I had major trouble the first time pairing my iPhone with the Aiden. It simply wouldn’t connect. After searching online, I found that Fellow’s server apparently has a queue, only allowing a few people to connect at a time. Then mysteriously, after a few days, it suddenly paired on its own.

Creating new brew profiles in the app is another headache. Since using the machine’s scroll wheel is tedious, I prefer setting up profiles in the app. But once I create a new profile, it doesn’t sync to the brewer automatically. There’s no refresh button to force the machine to check for updates.

Workflow Improvements Needed

Another downside is that the brewing workflow at times feels completely backward compared to how a normal “barista brain” works.

I’d love a barista mode that flips everything around to match how home baristas actually brew. Instead of choosing water volume first, I should start with the amount of beans. Then the machine could either suggest a ratio or let me set one, and calculate the water amount based on that.

This would be much more intuitive. For example, if I’m brewing at 1:16 but realize this particular coffee would taste better at 1:17, I might want to keep the same temperature profile but just tweak the ratio. That’s how my barista brain works.

In this barista mode, the timer should count up instead of down. It should show the bloom, first pour, second pour, etc., because that’s how we actually brew – we adjust on the fly. A countdown timer is still useful but could be smaller on the display, maybe showing both the current step and the countdown. Again, a simple firmware update could fix this.

Condensation and Maintenance Issues

Here’s something I haven’t seen other reviewers mention – there’s a condensation and ventilation problem after brewing. If you throw away the filter and close the machine as instructed, moisture gets trapped inside. One morning after doing this the night before, I noticed a mildew smell – like when you don’t dry a towel properly.

This isn’t just unpleasant – it’s not healthy to drink coffee from something with mildew. I recommend taking out the basket insert, wiping off any moisture, or alternatively leaving the lid open so everything can dry properly.

Competitor Comparison: Aiden vs. Moccamaster

The fifty-year-old Moccamaster offers a stark contrast to the Aiden’s modern approach.

In head-to-head brewing, I found that with manual intervention, the Moccamaster from Dutch brand Technivorm can get close to Aiden’s quality for light roasts but it requires effort from the user.

Notice that I’m only saying close, though. While the Moccamaster can get 90% of the way, Aiden is more like 98% of the way to a pro-level barista.

For medium roasts, the Aiden significantly outperforms the Moccamaster, eliminating bitter notes through temperature profiling.

The Aiden provides more consistent results with less intervention and handles small batches where the Moccamaster struggles.

My theory as to why the difference was more striking with a medium roast, than a light roast, is that The Moccamaster’s relatively high and consistent temperature is actually much more suitable for light roasts. The Moccamaster brews the entire cycle at 93-94°C, which is impressive. However, for medium roasts that temperature is a bit too hot and the less gentle water dispersion doesn’t help.

When I did a head to head test, I had configured the Aiden to start at 93°C and gradually decrease towards 88°C with each subsequent pulse and that seemed to make a massive difference along with its more gentle agitation.

This test was surprising because I had initially assumed the differences would be more subtle with a medium roast and less precise brewing setup. Instead, the differences were so apparent that I think even the regular coffee drinker with less discerning tastebuds would notice the difference.

Of course, the Moccamaster represents a completely different era of tech. It’s a simple, modular device that can easily be repaired. The complete opposite of the Aiden.

A lot of the arguments that can be made for regular car vs EV are probably also valid here. Do you value modern tech and smart functions over a more basic design that has stood the test of time? This will be a very individual decision. Coffee-wise Aiden takes the crown.

(A sidenote here: I don’t understand why Technivorm doesn’t try to lower the temperature of the Moccamster a bit, and create better water dispersion? We’re in 2025 – an update won’t hurt!)

Fellow Aiden vs. Breville Precision Brewer: Which One Wins?

Both the Fellow Aiden and Breville Precision Brewer target the specialty coffee crowd with precise temperature control, customizable profiles, and potential for great coffee. After testing both extensively, the Aiden makes better coffee, especially when we’re talking smaller batches. I feel confident in Aiden’s ability to handle a 200 ml brew. Can’t say the same for the Precision Brewer.

Feature	Fellow Aiden	Breville Precision Brewer
Build Quality	Mostly plastic, lighter feel	More substantial, better build
Capacity	1.5L	1.7L
Size (W×D×H)	22.7 × 22.7 × 30.5 cm	35.8 × 17.0 × 39.9 cm
Small Batch Performance	Excellent, even at 200ml	Struggles with small batches
Temperature Control	Advanced with variable curves	Good but less sophisticated
User Interface	Single click wheel, app issues	More intuitive buttons and display
Cup Quality	Exceptional, rivals manual brewing	Very good but not quite as refined

Breville’s brewing flagship definitely feels more substantial when you unbox it. It’s well-built, has a larger capacity (1.7L vs 1.5L), and is pretty intuitive to use. With its PID controller, multiple brew modes, and big display, it’s both user-friendly and flexible. It’s a good fit for offices or large households that need to brew bigger batches regularly.

But there are some real downsides to consider. Spare parts – especially the glass carafe – can be nearly impossible to find, even though they’re listed on Breville’s website. Since Breville makes everything from espresso machines to toasters, I worry about long-term support for a relatively niche coffee maker like this. That’s concerning when you’re spending several hundred dollars.

Build quality does feel better on the Precision Brewer, but the Aiden just looks better and is more discrete on the kitchen counter. The Precision Brewer (35.8 x 17.0 x 39.9 cm / 14.1 x 6.7 x 15.7 in) is a bit of a giant, similar to a heat exchanger espresso machine.

The Aiden (22.7 x 22.7 x 30.5 cm / 8.94 x 8.94 x 12 in) and as far I recall also quite a bit less noisy. The Aiden is just more discrete in comparison.

But overall, the deciding factor for me would come down to taste: The Aiden consistently produced better-tasting coffee thanks to its more sophisticated control over temperature curves, pulse timing, and bloom settings. While the Aiden’s interface and app definitely have issues, most can be fixed with firmware updates. And since this is by far the most expensive product from Fellow along with the Ode grinder, it’s more likely to receive ongoing support and updates.