I'm sure this is a question that often comes up, so I'm sorry to not be very "original," but I would still appreciate anyone who is willing to offer their perspective. I'm looking for advice on how to make the best informed decision on where & how much money to put down on equipment, so that I can get the most improvement to my daily coffee right away, but also strategically maximize my setup over the long-term. After 2 years in the hobby, I have chosen to make my first "large" purchase of a new burr grinder. I currently have a Cuisinart conical burr grinder. (Definitely not ideal, but at the time it was a major upgrade from my $25 hand grinder, plus it was a surprise gift from friends when I moved to take a job in a new state, so it meant a lot to me personally.) I've settled on two options, the Niche Zero or the Fellow Ode. Both the Niche and the Ode provide the main features I'm looking for: sleek design and single dosing into a small cup. I like that the Fellow Ode has a knocker and an auto-off feature, but those aren't dealbreakers for me--I'd be just fine without them.

Right now, I only make pour-over coffee. I started off in the hobby with no money, living off a part-time salary and barely scraping by for food and rent, so espresso was totally out of my reach for home brewing. I still use my plastic v60 & Melitta filter holder every morning, and in general, I prefer the experience of filter coffee & the moment of zen that comes with a pour-over. However, now I'm in a much more stable financial situation. I can foresee a future where an espresso machine might have a place in my home (the Flair 58 is the one I'm most drawn to, if that helps).

If money were no object, I would buy the Niche. I'm much more drawn to its looks, and it provides an additional benefit that if my coffee needs expand in the future, the grinder could stay the same and still be useful. If I buy the Niche and later decide I want to expand into espresso, I won't have to shell out $1000+ for a high-quality espresso-specific grinder. It also annoys me a little that if I buy the Fellow Ode, there will be a number of the coarse settings I will never use. I don't own a French press (I really dislike the muddiness compared to pour over) and cold brew tends to give me stomach aches, so I will never need a home machine that grinds very coarsely for those preparations. I know some people have issues with the Niche not grinding coarse enough for certain pour overs--I'm not super interested in the fine-grain technical aspects of that, mostly because I don't think I have the skill to notice the difference yet, but if anyone feels very strongly about it and has some hard evidence that they can provide, please do.

Even though I'm not in the same financial straits as I was before, $500 is still a huge amount of money for me. It's difficult to justify putting that much more down on a single appliance, when it could go into savings for a house, for example, or as an extra bump to my emergency fund. I'm still considering the Niche because I know I will use it everyday as my main grinder and get a huge amount of enjoyment out of it, but I haven't been able to bring myself to pull the trigger. Every time I do, I see the price and think of all the things I could use that money for.

So my question is this: would it be better for me to shell out the extra $500 for a Niche Zero knowing that if I want to expand into espresso in the future, it will be well-suited to do so? Or is it really not necessary, and I could pay the lower price on the Fellow Ode and feel good about it? The main thing I am trying to avoid is having buyer's remorse, whether that's buying the Ode and then wishing I'd paid a little extra, or buying the Niche and not having it be worth the price for me. I can only make one purchase: I need it to be the right one.

Thanks in advance for any perspectives, advice, or wisdom.

I also consider myself to be a newby and there are many people on this site that have much more experience than I. However, I do have the perspective of owning first the Niche and just recently the Ode. After having a bad experience many years ago with an entry-level espresso machine and giving up on espresso, I became fascinated with the Cafelat Robot (a manual lever machine like to the Flair) which seemed to be the ultimate in simplicity. I acquired the Robot and the Niche at the same time and have had a great time learning how to make passable espresso. The Niche is absolutely great! After being consistently disappointed with espresso at cafes, I find that most of my shots at home are now really enjoyable. The Niche is a beautiful piece of equipment and performs exactly as reported.

I also spend occasional weekends at a friend's cabin where the only coffee equipment is a blade grinder and a Clever dripper. I got the Ode as a present for my friend and, before delivering it to the cabin, I have been using both the Ode and the Niche at home, trying espresso and the Clever with both. I have not run enough coffee through either grinder to have the burrs "broken in" and my palate is anything but sophisticated, but here are my initial impressions. The Niche is designed for espresso and even in my inexperienced hands makes pretty good shots of espresso. It also does OK with a coarser grind for the Clever, enough so that I can enjoy both drinks with the Niche.

The Ode does a great job with the Clever, but hasn't been able to produce what I consider a decent espresso shot - I just can't get the grind fine enough. I understand that the manufacturer of the Ode is soon coming out with a new set of burrs that are intended to make good espresso as well as pour-over, but that probably won't happen for at least a few more months.

At this point, and assuming you will be getting a Flair, my recommendation would be to go for the Niche. I think you will soon be able to enjoy both espresso and pour-over. On the other hand, if you are willing to wait a few months until the Ode with the new burrs is available, you may want to see how that grinder performs in the many reviews that I'm sure will be soon available, before you make your decision.

Good luck!

My experience with the Niche is that it is a very good espresso grinder and an adequate "drip" grinder (if you're not too picky). If drip is your focus, I'd consider an Ode or other drip-intended grinder. At least up into the thousands, and then potentially only if you're abandoning classic espresso flavor, there are very few grinders that excel at both drip and espresso.

Can I ask what you mean when you say that the Niche is an "adequate" drip grinder, or what I would be picky over that might make it less than ideal? This is the stumbling block I often hit when reading reviews for the Niche. People say that it doesn't "work as well" for drip, but what is actually happening that's causing an issue? Is it the size of the grounds that it produces? Is it something having to do with the way it brews in the aftermath?

With the espresso side of things, it's more clear to me--you need a very, very fine grind to get water to pass through & extract successfully at that level of pressure. When it's pour over, I have a much harder time visualizing "what's going wrong."

While my tendency would be to say Ode for pour over. I have a Kickstarter one and it's been a pleasure to use for the year or two it's been here and a darn good brew grinder. If someday you want to put in SSP burrs it might be possible to use it for espresso but the adjustment mechanism is really designed for brew, not espresso.

Morseman wrote:I understand that the manufacturer of the Ode is soon coming out with a new set of burrs that are intended to make good espresso as well as pour-over, but that probably won't happen for at least a few more months.

Does this refer to the SSP burrs that you can currently get as an add-on for the Ode, or are they actually going through a new design iteration that will have those burrs (or a different set of burrs) built in? Earlier in my search process I gave some thought to getting an Ode with SSP burrs. I was turned off from it when I found out that previously they were telling people specifically, "do not use these burrs, our grinder is not designed to deal with them"--and then turned around and said "oh no it's fine" once they started selling them themselves.

My concern isn't over the morality of that, but over the impact it could have on the longevity of the grinder. I am not the kind of person who will be upgrading their kit every year, or every three years so I can have a new shiny thing. The world's in a state where we can't afford to squander its resources just because we'd like a slightly better grind. I will not be buying another coffee grinder until this grinder gives out, or if I absolutely must, in the case that I want to start making espresso and I don't have a grinder that can handle that. If it's true that using SSP burrs with the Ode as it's currently designed will shorten the lifespan, I'm not interested. If they're redesigning it then I could entertain it again.

Thanks for weighing in. I have looked at the DF64 before--not the Lagom Mini so much, but I've seen it around. On both, the price is definitely more comfortable for me. Unfortunately, I find both somewhat ugly, the Lagom especially, and that does matter to me. If I could replace the DF64's plastic cup with a metal dosing cup, I'd like it much better, but I think it's pretty obvious that comparing the DF64 to the Niche, "you get what you pay for" applies in the looks department.

And yeah, I see what you mean about the spectrum--the more I read on other threads on HB, using the Niche for pour over seems to be a touchy issue, and the people making pour over rarely walk away feeling satisfied. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the problem they're facing. Your comment that your pour overs have been muddy was actually really helpful, because on reflection I could imagine that if there are a lot of fines caused by a grinder intended for fine espresso grinds, it would probably make pour overs less clear. But other posts I've seen say the pour overs are just "not that good," without providing any information about what's not good.

ljsrolovic wrote:I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the problem they're facing. Your comment that your pour overs have been muddy was actually really helpful, because on reflection I could imagine that if there are a lot of fines caused by a grinder intended for fine espresso grinds, it would probably make pour overs less clear.

As unsatisfying as that explanation might be, that is probably as good as it gets. There aren't many people with the equipment needed to meaningfully measure grind distributions and probably even fewer that have the skills to conceive of and run "Why?" experiments.

Does drip from a Niche Zero tase like coffee? Yep. It is an enjoyable cup? Yep. Have I had better cups? Yep.

I have a fairly new Niche and mostly use it for espresso, I've also brewed a few batches with my Chemex but have not been super impressed so far. I am guessing it's at least partially due to 1) the burrs not being well seasoned yet and 2) be not having a great feel for the optimal grind size. I'm guessing it can be improved, to at least be decent, but I definitely can't say it's any better than my old baratza encore for pourover (it's MUCH better for espresso, though, and a lot more pleasant to use especially if you switch between multiple coffees and/or grind sizes).

Until you get into the super pricey grinders, it's kinda hard to have it all, which is why a lot of people have a separate espresso and brew grinder (not me though, I live in NYC so I don't have the counter space, and just deal with the meh pourover from the Niche). The Ode is going to probably give you better pourover than any dedicated espresso grinder until you get into at least the $1500 range, so at $300 it's a pretty good deal, and even if you buy a Niche later, you'll still have spent less than you'd have to spend to get a single grinder that can do Niche-quality espresso and Ode-quality pourover.

I would say that in general, spending more than you can really afford just to "future proof" isn't a great idea. If the Niche were just as good at pourover as the ode, then that'd be one thing, but it really isn't, so I don't think it makes sense to both go over budget AND accept lower quality pourover just in case you decide to take up espresso later (which would require another hefty investment). Also, reselling is an option.