The Best Coffee Makers
Verified by
Ryan V. Editor-in-Chief
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Ryan at Prima Coffee called the Fellow Aiden a 'dream coffee maker' for recipe nerds. Nick at Whole Latte Love measured a 24% extraction yield and 1.67% TDS on his test batch, the highest and heaviest cup in his entire SCA-brewer lineup. Those are numbers that manual pour-over experts chase for years with $200 kettles and $500 grinders. The Aiden hits them on its default setting.
The trick is the programmable pulse system. Fellow adapted commercial batch brewer technology into a countertop machine: you can set the temperature per individual pulse, control bloom volume and timing, and dictate how aggressively the showerhead saturates the coffee bed. It ships with flat and conical brew baskets, and an internal color-coded switch auto-adjusts the showerhead hole count based on which basket you insert. Ryan at Prima Coffee praised how this eliminates the guesswork of matching your filter type to your water dispersion.
Then there's the app. Fellow partnered with specialty roasters to offer downloadable brew profiles tuned to specific beans. Load a bag of Counter Culture or Onyx, scan the code, and the Aiden brews it exactly as the roaster designed. No other home machine does this. It's WiFi-connected, so you can schedule weekly brew times and start pots remotely.
The SCA awarded the Aiden its Best New Product honor in 2024. It meets Gold Cup certification standards. Fellow backs it with a 2-year warranty, with an option to extend. At $400, it costs more than the Moccamaster and about the same as a Ratio Six, but it outperforms both on raw extraction control.
What It Won't Do
Nick at Whole Latte Love discovered the default 'instant brew' mode runs way too hot and too long, producing an aggressively dark-chocolate cup with almost zero acidity. That 24% extraction number sounds impressive in isolation, but most specialty coffee drinkers target 18-22%. The Aiden over-extracts unless you dial it back manually or download a roaster profile. And despite its $400 price tag, the body is plastic where the Moccamaster uses metal. Only the two brew baskets are dishwasher safe. Everything else goes in the sink by hand. Ryan at Prima Coffee admitted it can send you 'too deep down the rabbit hole' if you just want a simple morning pot.
The OXO Brew 9-Cup is the automatic brewer to buy if you want specialty-grade drip coffee without paying specialty prices. Forbes Vetted put it head to head with the $369 Moccamaster KBGV Select, the machine most coffee people treat as the benchmark, and the OXO won. Two of the three tasters on Forbes Vetted's blind panel picked its cup as stronger and more rounded.
The showerhead explains a lot of that. OXO's circular Rainmaker head spreads water across the whole coffee bed, and Brenda at Forbes Vetted showed the spent grounds sitting flat and evenly extracted. The Moccamaster's rectangular shower arm left a raised ring of dry coffee unless she stirred it by hand. Even saturation is the whole game in a batch brewer, and the OXO gets it right with no help from you.
It also keeps coffee hot without cooking it. Brew goes into a double-wall stainless thermal carafe instead of onto a hotplate, and after an hour Forbes Vetted measured 166°F in the OXO against 162°F in the Moccamaster. Add a 24-hour auto-start timer, which the Moccamaster lacks, and you can wake up to a full pot.
At around $230 it costs a little over half what the Aiden does, and it carries the same SCA certification.
What It Won't Do
Height is the first problem. The OXO stands 17.2 inches tall, and Forbes Vetted warned it can be a squeeze under standard 18-inch upper cabinets, especially when you lift the lid to add water. The thermal carafe has a narrow mouth that needs a bottle brush, and nothing on the machine goes in the dishwasher. Its rounded, spring-loaded brew basket will not sit flat on a scale, so weighing your dose takes an extra container. You also get one fixed brew program: no temperature control, no pulse settings and no single-cup mode, so light-roast fans have nothing to adjust.
Who Should Buy Which
Fellow Aiden
The batch brewer that also nails a single precise cup
- You alternate between single cups on weekdays and a full 10-cup batch on weekends
- You buy light or dark roasts and want to set brew temperature and pulses to suit each bag
- You like downloading recipes from roasters and scheduling brews from your phone
- Your kitchen has standard upper cabinets, since the Aiden stands only 12 inches tall
- You are willing to spend about $400 for the most control any home batch brewer offers
OXO Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker
Forbes Vetted's pick over the Moccamaster, with an even showerhead and a thermal carafe
- You want SCA-certified drip coffee for about $230
- You brew 2 to 9 cups at a time for a household and want them hot an hour later
- You want the pot ready when you wake up without an app or Wi-Fi setup
- You drink medium roasts and want a balanced cup with no tinkering
- You have open counter space or more than 18 inches under your upper cabinets