Fellow Opus review: A coffee grinder that works like a masterpiece

When it comes to making coffee at home, there are people who do it and there are people who are obsessed with it. For many of us, we can’t just grab a bag of pre-ground junk food from the grocery store and drop it into an automatic drip machine every morning. We need to be able to extract the nuanced flavors from your locally roasted beans. And, if you’re like me, you like having the option of at least seven preparation methods because you really never know what you’ll be in the mood for. For true coffee lovers, a versatile grinder is a crucial piece of home setup.

Fellow has a proven track record of well-designed, sturdy coffee equipment. The company makes everything from travel mugs to teapots, including a grinder designed primarily for preparing pour-over beans. That first model , houses flat burs with capacity for 31 grind settings that can cover AeroPress, French press, cold brew, and other brew methods as well. However, it’s not capable of producing the fine grind you need for espresso, and it cost $299 at launch (the company now sells it ).

Get into . Fellow’s is more versatile than Ode and can be used to brew beans for 9-bar espresso plus pour-over, French press, cold brew, and much more. It also has ten more grind settings than the previous model and employs conical burs for consistent results. Like the Ode, the Opus has a magnetically aligned catch cup equipped with a spouted ring that helps keep the counter clean, aided by Fellow’s anti-static technology. Like its predecessor, the Opus doesn’t have a huge hopper to store beans on top: it’s meant to be a single-dose machine where you can grind up to 110 grams at a time. This saves space as the Opus is considerably shorter than many of its competitors. Plus, that design choice gives the device a much more refined look than your typical coffee grinder.

I have been using the since I compiled for Engadget in 2019. If you survey professional baristas, I bet most of them would tell you that’s the gold standard for home coffee grinders. And it’s for good reason: the Encore is highly versatile and has been producing consistent quality for years. It has the large hopper on top, whether you want to store your beans in there or not. It’s noisy, and because you push the coffee grounds into the latch from the side, there’s a lot of mess that ends up on your counter.

The Opus quickly solved two of the problems I have with the Encore. First of all, it’s remarkably quiet. In fact, I can run the Opus at night or early in the morning while my two-year-old is still sleeping in a room near the kitchen without worry. I’ll wake him up. That’s not always the case with the Encore. Second, the Opus drops the grounds directly into the collecting cup, leaving less room for debris to escape. Fellow’s new grinder doesn’t have a striker to reduce grind retention like the Ode does, but it doesn’t. When I put in 70 grams of whole beans, I get 70 grams of ground coffee each time. It’s been so consistent that I no longer feel the need to re-weigh terrains to make sure I have enough, an extra step I took with Encore. And when you’re grinding for espresso, Fellow has included a collection cup insert to make transferring small batches to a portafilter a much less messy affair.

Fellow has also made Opus very easy to use. A rotary ring near the top rotates to adjust to the desired coarseness. If you’re like me and forget which setting to use for French press or pour over, Fellow has printed a guide inside the bean chamber lid. No more googling a laptop or your phone, the details you need will be there when you go loading up on whole grains.

The ease of use extends to the controls. There is only one button press to operate the Opus: one presses for 30 seconds, two for one minute, and three for 90 seconds. You can also long press the button to make the grinder run for a full two minutes. Unlike the Ode, the Opus does not turn off when it detects that all the beans are ground. Instead, it runs until the selected time runs out or you go back and press the button one last time. The lack of auto-off doesn’t bother me though, as the Encore runs until you turn it off with no time options set.

The Opus improves three things for my daily coffee routine. It runs quietly and keeps my kitchen cleaner while producing consistently ground beans no matter what setting I put it on. It also looks much better than the two coffee grinders I have used for a long time, mainly due to the fact that the lack of a large hopper makes it as much a masterpiece as a brewing piece of equipment. , it’s significantly cheaper than the Ode but slightly more than the Encore. I’d gladly part with that few extra bucks for clean counters, a toddler to get a few more minutes of sleep, and a sprinkling of modern style.