The Xbloom is designed for everyone who's into coffee in mind. If you're well versed in the coffee world, then you can geek out all you want. For beginners? The entire process is simplified for you with a card.The Xbloom comes with a built-in grinder, which does a very good job. I put the grinder up against my personal ZP6. While the flavor clarity is not as high as the ZP6, it still produce a great cup of coffee. The result is still impressive nonetheless.The machine offers all kinds of controls that you can think of, like grind size, grinding speed, flow rate, agitation, brew ratio, temperature, bloom time, etc. All of which you can access using the Xbloom App, which you can also create your own profiles that tailor to your taste, or dialing in certain beans. So far, the Xbloom does not disappoint.At the bottom of the drip tray, you'll find a built-in scale, which is quite convenient to use. Although, the scale is a bit awkward to use because of how low it is, and how cramp it is at the bottom. But, considering the value for what I get? I really cannot complain.Quite literally everything you need to brew a good cup of coffee is all built into the machine.I bought this Xbloom for my girlfriend, who is not a coffee nerd. She enjoys drinking coffee, not so much making it. I brew my own coffee with a V60, but since we do not live together, the Xbloom is the substitute for my V60 to her. At first, the machine is not at all user-friendly for her. However, I showed her how to use the included 3-pour card recipe, and that simplifies the entire process for her. All she needed to do is to tap the card on top of the machine and press go. A delicious cup of coffee is ready for her in 3 minutes.I really mean it when I mentioned this machine is for everyone. Whether you're a coffee nerd, or just an average coffee drinker, the Xbloom will provide you with everything you need, and more. For $500, you get an all-in-one set up in an extremely compact package. I highly recommend the Xbloom and hope that this review helps you make your decision.

great coffee

I purchased one of these machines directly from the xBloom site but I wanted to leave a review here. I have a coffee recipe that calls for 203F (95C) degree water but directly from the spout it is coming out at 150F (65C). In the attached photo I brewed just water to demonstrate this. This is pour number 3 in my recipe that calls for 203F and the water is 142F (61C) degrees in the cup. This is a brand new machine so scale build up is not an issue. I use room temperature filtered water. XBloom customer support has stated that this 53 degree difference is within their acceptable range which I find crazy. The coffee is around 120F degrees when I drink it and is not enjoyable. My $80 Keurig makes hotter coffee than this $500 machine. The temperature remains the same from the first pour in the recipe to the last. It never gets hotter than around 150F.

I spent about two months reading all of the reviews for the Xbloom Studio and even joined the dedicated Discord group to read about potential issues. The machine is really fantastic and more consistent than using my Hario V60 with Fellow kettle. It is definately worth $499. This machine is great for beginners and advanced users. There is very little learning curve to get a great cup of coffee. I've read someone posting about water temperature, but they did not mention what settings they were using as you can set the machine to 203 F for water. The company and other experts on Youtube pointed out to this reviewer they were taking the water temperature wrong. If your cup of coffee is 150F+ in your cup you should be good to go. You can even pre-heat your cup to ensure there is little to no heat loss.Pros:- Just a beautiful-looking machine and fun to watch each morning. There is a wow factor when making a cup of coffee for friends and family.- Using pods or my own beans, the machine is very consistent.- The convenience factor is huge with having kids.- My wife would never do a pour-over and this is a huge upgrade for her as she was using a Keurig- Lower cost than going with a Fellow Aiden + grinder.- Hooking up the machine to a 1-gallon jug of spring water means we can go at least a week without having to fill the machine up with water. The local hardware store sold the 1/4" plastic tubing required for $1.50 for four feet. I just drilled a hole in the jug's lid and a smaller hole in the lid for air pressure. We keep the lid and swap out jugs.- Doing single cups throughout the day means no wasted coffee from a batch brew and no thermos to clean out.- Scale seems super accurate and is easy to use.Cons:- Measure to make sure you have enough clearance above to pour in the beans.- You are better off buying directly from Xbloom if you want to use the $20 off referral code and also the additional free items they give for their bundles.- Only a 1 year warranty in the USA versus 2 years in Europe. My credit card doubles the warranty, but you may consider purchasing an extended warranty on Amazon.- Pricey pods. They are $1.50 to $2 each plus shipping. Xbloom typically has sales, but we've found that buying a 1lb of coffee and putting them into centrifuge tubes dosed out to 15g makes it so that we can get the price down to lower than a Keurig pod.- Filters are typically $8-10 per 100. Xbloom now sells them on Amazon for $10, including shipping.- Pods are typically 15g of coffee and produce around 10 oz of coffee. This is a typical cup, but I'm use to using 18-24g and getting a larger cup. You are able to adjust the recipe to use up to 18g, but beyond that you have to really take the time to adjust settings to ensure the water does not overflow in the dripper.- You have to update the machine in order to get "auto-mode" where you can turn on the machine and select from light/medium/dark roast and in two pushes of a button start the machine for using your own beans and not the pod.