I’ve been grinding my own beans at home for years now, thanks to a few coffee nerds I lived with in college. Nerd isn’t a pejorative here, they made damn good coffee. Slowly I began finding an interest in coffee nerdery myself, leading to an obsession with brew methods, water temperatures, the nuances of finely ground beans vs. coarsely ground beans — the list goes on. While every aspect of coffee brewing matters, from the roast of the beans to the final pour, I’ve learned that the most widely ignored aspect is the grind.
When making coffee at home, there is no one-size-fits-all grind that works for every method, making it difficult to get the best flavor out of your beans unless you have a grinder of your own. Thanks to Fellow, one of our favorite brands in the coffee world, getting a café-quality grind is now achievable at home with its superlative Ode grinder. While it is expensive, it punches well above its weight, both in terms of design and function. Is it worth $299, though?
FellowWhat’s good?
Design: While most coffee grinders are best kept in a cupboard when they’re not being used, the Ode’s clean lines, oversized coarseness dial and black aluminum body make it more of a design piece than an appliance.
Sound (or lack thereof): If you have a coffee grinder at home already, you’re probably accustomed to waking up the entire neighborhood each morning when you fire it up. This makes sense, seeing that it is a machine with metal blades pulverizing beans into dust. The Ode, however, utilizes its café-grade stainless steel burs and a number of noise-dampening technologies`in the body to grind the beans quietly — or at least as quiet as you can hope for.
