xBloom Studio Review

Has pour-over coffee been perfected?

A properly-prepared pour-over is, arguably, the best way to experience coffee. It’s clean, aromatic, and gives the inherent flavors and aromatics the most opportunity to express themselves. But pour-over coffee is quite a bit more labor intensive than other brew methods. It takes longer, and requires your attention the whole time. It’s unlikely to be a feasible option for anyone with a busy morning. 

Several attempts have been made at automating what has normally been a purely manual process, Fellow's Aiden being a very recent example. The Aiden is at its core, a coffee maker with some pour-over sensibilities, still more brewer than barista. 

What if the pour-over process could be automated? What if results could be guaranteed and repeated every time you brew?

That is exactly what the xBloom does…actually, it does a couple of things.  

The xBloom is an automatic pour-over device with a built-in grinder and a companion app. Using a Kinematic Brewer, the xBloom can brew in one of three styles (I'll get into those a bit later) with a stream of water that imitates pours from a gooseneck kettle. The app offers complete control over a wide range of variables including flow rate, grind size, temperature, and dose to name a few. You can either program your own recipe and brew using whatever coffee you like, or you can fully automate the process using xBloom's proprietary single-serving system known as xPods.

Each compostable xPod is filled with whole-bean coffee from some of the most notable roasters in the specialty coffee world. Just tap the recipe card that comes with your xPods against the RFID receiver (marked by a stylized "xb" in the top right the xBloom) and it automatically loads a roaster-crafted recipe the machine will use to produce an absolutely outstanding cup of coffee. All that's left is to crack the pod open and add the beans to the grinder and you're ready to brew.

My favorite way to use the xBloom, however, is as a fully-programmable pour-over device. I've had an excellent time crafting my own recipes, tweaking practically every brew variable imaginable, and I've loved the convenience of being able to access my favorite recipes quickly and easily on the companion app. 

No matter how you choose to use it, however, the xBloom does a very good impression of a professional barista.  I’ve had the distinct pleasure of using one to brew my coffee for several weeks now, and I am genuinely excited to share my thoughts. 

xBloom Studio: An Overview

The xBloom Studio is a fascinating device. Aesthetically, it’s both mysterious and alluring: a blank obelisk with no visible screens—all you see in terms of user interface are three knurled, metal knobs. Turn one, and the face of the machine illuminates with three retro-pixelated icons, one above each knob to indicate its function.

On the left, a dotted square representing coffee grounds labels the grinder; in the middle, a drop of water indicates the brewing function; on the right, a weight denotes the scale. Each of these functions can be used independently by pressing the relevant knob. The grinder can prepare grounds for a French press; the scale can weigh beans for an espresso; the brewer can pour hot water for tea. The possibilities are just about endless, and, of course, the three functions can be used together as a singular, automated pour-over device. 

The grinder uses a set of 48mm conical steel burrs and gives you 80 stepped grind settings that take you all the way from espresso to cold brew in terms of sizing. That’s right: you can use this thing to grind for espresso (I tried, and it really does work). In fact, the dosing cup that comes with the xBloom fits perfectly on a 58mm portafilter and—if your portafilter basket has high enough iron content—it attaches magnetically so you can flip transfer one-handed without making any sort of mess. Each grind setting adjusts the burr spacing by 18.75 microns, and you can adjust the grind speed between 60 and 120 RPM in 10 RPM increments. As a general rule of thumb, slower RPMs are preferable for filter sizes, while faster RPMs work best for espresso. 

The entire lower platform and drip tray on the xBloom functions as a scale. It’s accurate to 0.1 g when weighing up to 1,000 g, and accurate to 1 g up to 2,000 g. 

The brewer instantly heats water anywhere from 104°F to 203°F, with a notch below for “Room Temperature” and one above for “Boiling Point.” When brewing, it can pour in one of three patterns: a spiral, a circle, and straight down the middle. 

Each of these functions can be manipulated independently by interacting with its knob (pressing or turning it), which opens a menu on the face of the machine where you can customize the particular settings for each feature. All of this can also be accomplished by using the companion app, which makes tweaking all of these settings and programming repeatable brew recipes even more intuitive and easy. The app also gives you access to hundreds of recipes created by roasters specifically for their coffees, which you can use as starting points for your own brews. 

When using the Freesolo mode, what's really cool is that you can brew directly into any of your favorite pour over devices like a Varia FLO or even a Chemex. The xBloom also comes with it's own proprietary dripper attachment called the Omni Dripper that you will need to brew with if you want to fully utilize all of the customizable variables, agitation in particular. The Omni Dripper uses flat bottom paper filters similar to a Kalita Wave that typically produces a heavier body and even extraction. 

But the xBloom is also extremely versatile: if you want to nerd out over precise recipe programming, you can use the app to craft recipes that allow you to customize everything from brew temperature to pouring pattern, post-pour agitation, and beyond. It’s really hard for me to imagine a scenario where you wanted to have the xBloom pour a certain way and weren’t able to customize it easily on the app.

Despite appearances, the 32 oz reservoir keeps up with heavy use fairly well. We’ve had two to three people making at-least-twice-daily coffees on our xBloom for weeks now, and I've never felt like I had to fill it up too often. It’s also nice that you have the option to pour directly into the reservoir or remove it and bring it to your pitcher if, say, you’ve got your xBloom positioned under low-hanging cabinets. Do note: I said "pitcher" and not "faucet" because, like with any coffee- or espresso-brewing device, you should be using properly-filtered water with your xBloom. Of course, you can also plumb the Studio’s reservoir to a water line if you want to eliminate the need to refill altogether. 

xBloom as an Automated Pour-Over Device

When I first brought the xBloom Studio back to our studio to test, I didn’t have any xPods to use it with. So, as I waited anxiously for their delivery, I used the machine to prepare pour-overs with the coffee we had available. 

The xBloom became an instant hit with the video team. Honestly, it would have been hard not to dive head-first down the rabbit hole of brew customizations that is the xBloom app. When crafting recipes, you’re able to control just about everything related to how your coffee is brewed: dose, coffee-to-water ratio, grind size, grind speed, number of pours, pouring pattern, water temperature, flow rate, pauses and agitations between pours, and the volume of each pour—all of this can all be precisely set and programmed. 

Crafting a Recipe

I set out to design a recipe for our Colombian Tolima single-origin, a light-roasted coffee with notes of orange, apple, grape, caramel, and toasted almond. To avoid being overwhelmed by the customization options available to me, I started with an even, five-pour recipe based on the 4:6 method developed by 2016 World Brewer’s Champion Tetsu Katsuya. Essentially, the method recommends a coarse grind (similar to a French press) and a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio distributed evenly over five pours with a 45 second pause between each pour. From there, sweetness and acidity can be adjusted by tweaking the ratios of the first two pours, and strength can all be increased or decreased by adjusting the ratios of the last three pours. 

To increase sweetness, take some of the volume from your first pour and add it to your second—Katsuya recommends 10 ml (1 cubic centiliter of water is the equivalent of 1g). To increase acidity, reverse that, and add 10 ml to the first pour from the second. To increase the strength of your brew, break the three last pours into four; to reduce strength, combine them into just two. 

The first attempt took nearly five minutes to draw down (mostly because of those 45-second pauses), which, I’ll be honest, scared me—I usually shoot for a draw-down between 2:30 and 3:00. But it turned out to be quite pleasant. It was a very mild cup, with just a hint of sweetness and a lingering-yet-subtle appley flavor. As the coffee cooled, the sweetness became just a little more pronounced and even more enjoyable. 

If I’m being honest, this was somewhat disappointing. 

Don’t get me wrong—the coffee was great…but that’s sort of the point: I was supposed to write a whole segment on crafting a recipe on the xBloom and I kind of feel like I nailed it on the first try.

In the name of science, I decided to do some tweaking anyway.

Katsuya’s method states that by reducing the volume of the first pour and adding it to the second, you can increase the sweetness of your brew. So, I lowered the initial pour by 10 ml, bumped the second up by 10 ml and set the xBloom to working its magic. 

Another recipe customization decision I made was to change the pouring pattern. In our initial use of the xBloom, we used the spiral pouring pattern exclusively, and noticed that there were always some grounds that got pushed up on the sides of the filter that didn’t seem to be getting wetted throughout the whole process. We were able to mostly eliminate this issue by alternating between spiral and circular pours, and so I kept this choice when testing Katsuya’s method here. 

It turns out, they don’t just give World Brewers Cups to anyone who walks in off the street. The coffee was notably sweeter up front, with a nice little kiss of tartness that stuck around after the initial party was over. Like the first brew, that sweetness intensified slightly as the coffee cooled, making for a thoroughly enjoyable drinking experience. 

Wanting to build on the success of my first modification, I was curious how reducing the draw-down time would impact the flavor of our Colombia Tolima. So I reduced the wait between pours from 45 seconds to 22 (as close to reducing it by half as I could get) and tried again. 

This time around the coffee was much more muted and lacking in flavor than when I waited the full 45 seconds between each pour. It wasn’t bad, per say, but it lacked the sweetness and complexity of flavor that I had achieved with my previous recipe. 

So where did we end up? Here’s the best recipe I came up with for our Colombia Tolima: 

Picking Bones…Well, Bone

There is but one aspect of the xBloom Studio that I can’t quite wrap my head around—the limitations to brewing temperature. The xBloom gives you the option to brew coffee at up to 203°F, or at a somewhat-cryptic “boiling point.”  In my testing, the highest temperature I saw out of the spout was 201°F when the machine was set to brew at 203°F, and 204°F when set to boiling point. 

Now, there aren’t TOO many coffees that want to be brewed higher than 204°F, but here’s the rub: when programming a recipe on the app, you can’t use the boiling point temperature setting; you can only go up to 203°F, which means the brew water hitting your coffee is going to be 201°F at the hottest. Of course, you could brew manually to gain access to the “BP” temps, but one of the coolest things about the xBloom is that you can automate recipes and brewing so you don’t need to do it manually. 

Despite not fully understanding the choice to omit boiling point brewing from programmed recipes, it really only matters if you’re interested in super light roasts that demand brew temperatures above 201°F. If you’re a medium or dark-roast enjoyer, the xBloom will perform quite admirably. And, again, it’s not like I didn’t get to drink some super-tasty light roasts brewed on the xBloom—our Colombia Tolima is a light roast, after all. 

Man vs. Machine

The xBloom Studio certainly is an impressive machine. But just how impressive is it? Can it brew a better cup of pour-over coffee than a trained barista? 

Determined to put its mettle to the test, I recruited my colleague, John, for a little competition. John’s been a coffee pro for over 15 years, and he certainly knows his way around a pour-over setup. The question I sought to answer was this: in a blind taste test, who would make a better cup of coffee, John, or the xBloom Studio?

So, I had John whip up his own recipe for our Colombia Tolima, which I then programmed into the xBloom app for me to brew. He manually executed the same recipe using a Varia VS3, Aura Kettle, and FLO Dripper. Once everything was brewed and ready, I set up a blind taste test for five of my colleagues (John included—he didn’t know which brew was which either) and everyone spent a few minutes tasting and jotting down their notes. 

Overall, tasters found John’s brew to be lighter in body with a nuttier flavor, good initial sweetness, and low acidity. The xBloom’s brew was described as having a heavier body with a higher acidity and flavors more in the fruity realm, with notes of grapefruit, lemon, and apple. 

After some discussion, three people voted the xBloom as the superior cup, while only two voted for John. However, I personally enjoyed John’s brew better (though I didn’t count myself in the experiment since I knew which was which), and a late participant came by for some sips after the fact and also preferred John’s, though I’m not really counting that either. 

In the end, I can confidently say that the xBloom Studio is capable of brewing a cup of coffee on par with what you could expect to get from an expert barista, provided it’s got a good recipe to follow…I can also say it’s a heck of a lot less work than doing a pour-over yourself. 

Brewing with xPods

At long last, our order of xPods arrived! As much fun as I was having messing around with brew recipes in the app, I was eager to give the xPods a try.

So I cracked our pack of xBloom’s Sunrise blend: a washed mix of Brazilian and Colombian beans, dark-roasted with promised notes of caramel, chocolate, and spiced nuts.

It was…pretty good. I mean, look. I’m not the hugest fan of dark-roasted coffees, but I did get that promised caramel flavor in there. At the end of the day, it was an enjoyable cup of coffee and—I cannot stress this enough—it was unbelievably easy to make. 

I'm definitely curious to try more xPods (particularly those of different roast levels) though experimenting with my own recipes remains by far the most exciting thing about this machine. 

xBloom: Original vs. Studio

This blog may have focused primarily on the xBloom Studio, but it’s not the only game in town. The xBloom Original is the predecessor to the Studio, and while they generally do the same thing, there are some distinctions that are definitely worth noting. 

Metal Housing

The xBloom Studio is made primarily of plastic with the exception of the knurled metal knobs. The Original, on the other hand, is encased in a metal housing, giving it more weight and a more sophisticated appearance. 

All-App, All the Time

The xBloom Original does not have much in the way of physical user interface—you must use the app to program and tweak recipes. Of course, if you’re using xPods, you can also just tap the recipe card on top to load a recipe. Pressing down on the brew cradle can also initiate brewing.  

Solid State Brewing

The xBloom Studio uses a mechanical rotating nozzle to achieve different pour patterns. The Original, however, uses electrically-charged nodes to pull water in various directions. This sounds very cool— and it is—but it actually doesn’t translate to better performance (thus the shift to a mechanical spout in the xBloom Studio). 

An Issue of Scale

The xBloom Original does not have a built-in scale—the Studio does. This hampers the functionality of the Original somewhat if you're looking to craft recipes based on a total liquid output. 

Thinking about the Tank

The xBloom Studio’s water reservoir is a bit larger than the Original (32 oz vs 23.7 oz); it also can be plumbed directly to a water line for a never-ending supply of water. 

Overall, I much prefer the xBloom Studio to the Original. If you’re getting into the xBloom game so you can tweak and adjust recipes with precision and brew with your own beans (rather than using xPods), the built-in scale makes a LOT of difference in your workflow. However, if your interest in the xBloom is as a pod brewer that actually makes good coffee, and your kitchen’s aesthetic demands metal housing to plastic, the Original is a more luxurious-looking option for sure. 

Final Thoughts

The xBloom Studio is, in my opinion, by far the easiest way to get a professional-quality cup of pour-over coffee at home. It's also a sophisticated tool nerdy home baristas can use to craft precise and specific recipes for all their favorite roasts.

As I type this, I am thinking of ways I can rationalize the need to keep ours in the studio so I can continue to use it on a daily basis. I am checking my bank account to see if I can justify buying one for my home. I am mentally preparing an elevator pitch for my wife to bring her on-board—honestly, it shouldn’t be hard. 

The xBloom Studio is, in many ways, the perfect machine for us: she is, in her heart, a convenience coffee drinker. The ability to tap an xPod card and enjoy a masterfully-brewed cup of pour-over coffee would delight her to no end. For me, the endless tweaking of recipes and experimenting with pour patterns and ratios would fill my weekend mornings with joy…and, of course, excellent coffee. 

If you fall into either of those categories of coffee drinkers (or if someone you live with and love does), the xBloom Studio just might be the best present you could get for yourself (or them). 

As always, thanks so much for reading. If you have any questions about anything in this blog (or one of my other ones) feel free to drop me a line. 

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