Got my Fellow Espresso Series 1 on Monday. Very happy with the sleek aesthetic. Doesn’t make coffee or steam milk, but the build quality is very sturdy. The interface isn’t too hard to navigate, the only problem is that nothing I select will cause hot water to flow through the grouphead. Lots of variety for preset profiles, I like the total customization at my fingertips for creating the profiles, my only minor issue is that none of them command the machine to make coffee. The boosted boiler heats up very quickly and fairly quietly (little vibration), I would love to see this feature improved in the future by having that water directed to the grouphead and not the drip tray. Steam wand is a good size and, ergonomically speaking, feels very comfortable to control, the only thing I would add would probably be a steaming function. Anyway, I have had the machine 3 days and here is how I would rate it:
Aesthetic: 10/10
Interface: 8/10
Build quality: 8.5/10
Brewing: 0/10
Steaming : 0/10
If Fellow sends me a new machine, I might have to write another review
by LaGreatLaRoy
18 Comments
10/10
So 5.3 average. Not great, but definitely not bad OP
Looks amazing visually but a coffee machine that doesn’t actually make coffee is the funniest 0 out of 10 review I’ve seen.
This is the best write-up of the Fellow I’ve seen yet, definitely gives me a lot of think about as one is waiting in my cart. 10/10
👌
5/7
Doesn’t make coffee or steam milk? Was this supposed to be posted in espressocirclejerk instead? 😆
To be fair, a lot of machines make coffee. Very few have the courage to innovate by skipping that step entirely.
Follow up question: how would you rate its performance as a very expensive “hot-water-to-drip-tray” transfer device?
Honestly I think people focus too much on whether espresso machines make coffee.
The real question is: does it look good while not making coffee?
Man I have been seeing a flood of posts about how Fellow products just break or do not work. Grinders spilling, groupheads not producing water or water not being the right temp as advertised.
I was considering buying the ES1 because its a beautiful looking machine but all of these reviews give me pause.
I would send their Support team a ticket if you haven’t already since it sounds like they have really great aftercare
Hi where did you buy the cart? Looks nice
Thanks for the detailed write up! I don’t like espresso at all, so I’m strongly considering this machine. It’s nice to finally have something on the market that looks good AND doesn’t make espresso. I mostly don’t drink Americanos, but I occasionally don’t make milk drinks too, so it’s nice to hear that it also doesn’t steam milk… sounds like it could be the perfect machine for me!
Eh, I personally don’t like to cheap out but you do you
Just shut down r/espressocirclejerk at this point the overused butler jokes could never even compare to this
Think of it this way, it can never disappoint you with the coffee it makes if it never makes you any coffee
It’s all about the journey and friends you made along the way, not the destination. What I’m trying to say is, get a butler.
It also is a nice cup holder !
With the frustration around some of their products I could never see myself wasting money on a first generation product like this even if it’s got a lot of bells and whistles. The use of plastics is off putting.
But I’ve also probably spent close to 40-50K on machines and grinders over 17 years so I’m sure I’ll eventually lose my wits and order a second generation model and walk back my words
Hey all, I know this is the Fellow guy chiming in again, but I wanted to give you a transparent update on these out of box failures. First, we’ve shipped thousands of espresso machines over the past week and we’re seeing a low single-digit failure rate. For those who experience a failure, we recognize this is a horrible experience and we’re working hard to replace those units ASAP.
For more details on what we’ve learned, please see the information below.
1. We have root caused both of the main things that people are seeing with out of box failures. The first is when the machine will only brew to the drip tray. The second is when the unit is leaking internally.
2. Both failures are caused by shipping damage. We extensively test our packaging to industry standard ISTA 3A. For a package of this size and weight, we can drop it 15 times at a height of about 2 feet without issue. The G forces that these machines are seeing to cause these failures are DOUBLE the industry standard expectation. The bottom line is that some of these units are being dropped from a height of 4 feet or more.
3. To get to this point, we have cross checked every failed unit with the factory tests that were performed. All machines met our specifications at the factory. We also sent a team of engineers to our warehouse (where units are shipped from in the USA) to manually inspect and test machines at a certain quality limit to determine if the shipping damage is happening between the factory and our warehouse, or between the warehouse and customers homes. To date, we have only found ONE unit at our warehouse with an issue. This means that we have extremely high confidence that everything coming out of our factory is meeting our expectations.
4. Let’s talk about what we’re doing about it. All units being shipped from here on out will be labeled with FRAGILE stickers, and we are exploring double boxing all units with additional foam. We are also working on a longer term plan to make sure we meet even tighter shipping standards going forward.
5. If you have received your unit and it’s working as intended, rest assured that the machine is OK. These failures are an immediate out of box thing and will present themselves as such.
All we can say is that we will continue to do everything we can for our customers. If you get a bad unit, we will replace it immediately, and myself and the team are here for you.
Thanks for your patience,
Nick (VP of R&D at Fellow)