Why I Finally Bought a Home Espresso Machine
And why it took a competition barista 15 years to get there
Thai Patton
In 2009, I was a young barista in Boulder, Colorado, pouring coffee at a small independent shop called The Cup on Pearl Street. Forty seats, serious about coffee, working in partnership with Conscious Coffee, a local Boulder roaster that went on to win Roaster of the Year from Roast Magazine in 2011. Our owners and the roasters pushed us hard on technique, and somewhere in that process I developed a small following for my latte art pours. We decided that year to enter the Mountain Regional Specialty Barista Competition.
These competitions were still niche in 2009, before the third wave explosion brought them mainstream attention. I was competing against baristas from seven states. That regional pool has since shrunk to four as interest grew and the field divided, which probably means the competition is stiffer now than it was when I was in it. The format works like this: you prepare a cappuccino, an espresso, and an original specialty drink. Judges evaluate you like sommeliers. Can you articulate the flavor profile of your coffee? Are your cappuccinos poured consistently and proportionally? Are you managing your waste? The specialty drink has its own criteria — it has to enhance the espresso rather than mask it, be completely original, and contain no alcohol.
My drink that year was a bacon-infused latte. Smoky bacon, pancakes, and coffee in a single cup. Because everything tastes better with bacon, and I saw no reason espresso should be the exception. I placed third in a heated contest and came home with a trophy and a very specific understanding of what good coffee actually requires.
I tell you all of this because it explains why I went fifteen years without buying a home espresso machine.
People ask me about it constantly. You have a competition barista background. You care about this more than almost anyone they know. Why aren't you pulling shots at home? The honest answer has always been that home machines weren't worth the effort. Variance is the enemy of good espresso, and consumer machines are underpowered and too small to generate consistent heat and pressure across pulls. The steam wands are weak, which makes creating proper microfoam — the textured, glossy milk that defines a well-made barista drink — genuinely difficult. I always felt it was better to go to a good coffee shop, let trained professionals run the ritual, and enjoy the space they've built around it. The cafe experience is part of the product.
I thought all of that until Fellow announced the Series 1.
Fellow already had a presence in our house before the espresso machine existed. We'd been using their Aiden coffee maker and the Oden grinder, and the build quality, flexibility, and usability of both had earned real trust. Fellow makes products for the prosumer market — still consumer goods, but with enough power and precision to close the gap between what you can make at home and what a trained barista hands you across a counter. When they announced the Series 1, their first home espresso machine, I got in line and put down a preorder deposit of $1,200, saving $300 for ordering early.
Then I waited.
And waited.
The machine arrived in late winter of 2026, about a year after I'd committed to it. It was worth the wait.
The design is beautiful and considered. Highly polished chrome against matte black plastic, with a buffed metal casing along the sides and back. This is a handsome machine that earns its place on a countertop rather than apologizing for it. The wooden 19g portafilter felt heavy and well-made in the hand, and I'll admit that I immediately spun it around like I hadn't missed a beat, like I was about to step back into a line I'd left fifteen years ago.
Dialing it in took some time, as it always does with a new machine and a new bag of beans. Once I found the dial, what I got was cafe-quality espresso, or close enough that the gap stops mattering. The 19g basket pulls a clean 1.5 oz ristretto with good crema and body. The sawed-off portafilter head lets you watch the extraction in real time, so you can see how evenly the shot is pulling across the group head and catch any channeling before it ruins the cup. Pressure is consistent. Water temperature holds. These are the two variables that consumer machines typically fail on, and the Series 1 handles both.
The on-screen interface lives in a small circular display and lets you set and save brewing profiles for different espresso bags. If you've used Fellow's Aiden, the UI will feel familiar immediately. If you grew up with a pre-iPhone iPod, the scroll wheel input will feel like coming home.
There are compromises, and they're worth naming honestly. You cannot pull a shot and steam milk simultaneously. For a home machine of this size, that's an expected limitation and not a dealbreaker once you build the rhythm into your routine. The steam wand is double-lined so it won't burn you on contact, which is a thoughtful safety detail, but the range of motion is limited in a way I wish they'd solved differently. You adapt to both of these things quickly.
The price is the harder conversation. I got in at $1,200 on preorder. The machine now sits at its full suggested retail of $1,500, which is not a small number. And the machine is only the starting point. A prosumer espresso machine deserves a grinder that can match it — I picked up the Femobook A68, an innovative Taiwanese grinder that deserves its own review, which it will get. Beyond the grinder, a spring-loaded tamper for consistent even pressure is worth the investment over the serviceable one included in the box. A grounds distributor helps you get every bit of value out of beans that are expensive enough to treat carefully. Distilled water and third wave water tablets. These additions accumulate, and you should go in knowing that.
None of it will replace going to a coffee shop. You should still go. Support your local third spaces. The Series 1 is not a substitute for that ritual — it's a different ritual, one that happens in your kitchen before the day starts.
But if you've been considering a home espresso machine and you want one that a former competition barista is willing to put his name behind, this is the one. It gave me back something I didn't know I'd been missing for fifteen years.
