This story has been updated with information from more than a month of at-home testing.
I’ve brewed pour-over coffee almost every morning that I’ve spent at home for more than a decade. I’m not one of those people who insists that the routine is a calming moment of zen before a busy day. Often (quite often, with five- and two-year-olds who wake up 15 minutes earlier than I do, no matter what time I wake up) I find it cumbersome and more time consuming than I’d like. But pour-over coffee just tastes so much better when I compare it to all the easier coffee-making methods that exist. Now, though, Fellow’s brand-new Aiden Brewer might be the thing that finally lures me back to the world of convenient coffee.
Over the almost-four years that I’ve been testing coffee and espresso makers for Epicurious and Bon Appétit, I’ve used quite a few pieces of equipment that claim to approximate a carafe of pour-over. Some of them make good—even very good—coffee, leaning on different features that mimic the classic pour-over setup. The Ratio 6, for example, models its showerhead after the way water is distributed in the pour-over process. The Café Specialty series allows you to adjust water temperature. But Fellow’s new brewer gets the closest of anything I’ve tried.
Fellow is best known for beautiful products that actually do make pour-over coffee: its gooseneck kettle, its burr grinders, its pour-over set. But the Aiden Brewer is the brand’s first electric coffee maker of any kind, and after using it for more than a month I think it’s one of the best things they’ve put out.
The key to the Aiden is its customizability. You can adjust both the water temperature and the length of the water bursts from the showerhead (think of them as the pours from a kettle when make pour-over). Those two variables are the ways you can adjust the flavor of the coffee. The Aiden comes pre-programmed with suggestions for what parameters to use. For example, medium roast coffee blooms and brews at 205℉, dark roast coffee blooms at 210℉ and brews at 185℉. And lest you think those tweaks are all smoke and mirrors, I brewed pots using the same beans but different settings and it resulted in notably different tastes. Darker beans brewed with hotter water came out bitter and even burnt. With the cooler water recommended on the dark roast settings it was robust, even bordering on smooth. Besides the temperature and water flow, you can also brew anywhere from a single cup (straight into a travel mug) up to a full 10 cup carafe in half cup increments.
