Fellow Series 1 Espresso Machine Review (2026): Excellent, but a Work in Progress

Another great innovation of the Series 1 is its patented heating system. Most espresso machines use boilers or thermoblocks to heat the water that goes into making the espresso. The boilers have admirable stability, but take forever to heat up. Thermoblocks are almost instantaneous, but less stable.

Fellow’s heating system falls somewhere in between, with a boiler complemented by a thermoblock that heats the water before it enters the boiler, and a heating unit head that helps stabilize the temperature at the portafilter. This theoretically offers the best of both worlds: greater temperature stability throughout an espresso, without the cold starts and hot finishes that can plague some home thermoblock machines.

The water tank has a capacity of 2 liters and is removable for easy filling, with one caveat: the tank can only be removed from the machine straight up. And so, if you’ve placed this machine under your cabinets, you may have trouble removing the water tank – a minor problem that can be very significant depending on your kitchen layout.

Shot selection

OK, let’s move on to what really excited me about this machine: the shooting profiles. He has them. Seven of them, each very different from the others.

Does Series 1 have very different profiles for light, medium and dark grains? Yes of course. How about a “lever” profile with six brewing stages that mimics the syrupy body and big crema of a manual espresso machine? Of course, why not? Turbo boosts? I got your back, ‘spro bro. It’s a whole new ball game.

Most espresso novices may never have to go past the light roast, medium roast, and dark roast modes. The dark roast is simple, almost traditional. Medium adds a pre-infusion for better extraction. Light roast adds pressure relief after the shot, to prevent shots from leaking out as the espresso deteriorates. For fun, you can track pressure in the form of a “shot curve” that appears on the Series 1’s circular screen.