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A new xBloom Studio machine using the included Omni pourover dripper. All images courtesy of xBloom.
California-based xBloom has launched a new generation of its home grinding and brewing system, the xBloom Studio.
Sneak peeks of the Studio model were available at the Intelligentsia Coffee and Third Wave Water booths at the SCA Expo in Chicago earlier this month.
[See DCN’s complete 2024 SCA Expo coverage here.]
Preorders for the new machine launched yesterday at the xBloom website for a discounted price of $449, with deliveries slated to begin in June.
The new model was designed to include the convenience of xBloom’s fully automated single-use xPod system, while adding new features that allow users to move beyond pods into customized automatic brews through any number of methods.
An xBloom Studio with an xPod plus additional components for customizable brews.
Like its predecessor, the Studio model is tied in with xBloom’s roasted coffee marketplace, which recently expanded beyond pods to include bags of whole bean coffee from independent roasters.
The xBloom Studio Hardware
The new model features a digital scale built into the drip tray, a physical 3-knob interface designed to recall music studio equipment and a wider range of user-controlled settings for grinding and hot water.
The Studio’s onboard water reservoir is larger, and it can be connected directly to external water supplies.
A lineup of xBloom studio production machines.
The Studio’s 48-millimeter conical burr zero-retention grinder is adjustable in 80 18.75-micron steps, accommodating a broad range of brewing methods, and an optional 58-millimeter magnetic dosing cup is now included. A new gearbox inside the grinder module provides higher torque and variable speeds that can be adjusted by users to anywhere from 60-120 RPM.
New Modes
Three modes of operation in the xBloom Studio are called Autopilot, Copilot and Freesolo. Autopilot mode carries forth the original fully automated bean-to-cup pourover system, involving scanning an RFID code associated with a single-use whole-bean xPod. Bean-specific grinding and brewing settings are automatically downloaded and executed by the machine.
In addition to a starter pack of xPods, new machines also ship with a bag of freshly roasted whole bean specialty coffee and a reusable dripper called the Omni Brewer. These are for use in Copilot Mode, which encourages users to experiment with grind, dose, water temperature, flow rates, pour patterns and numbers of pours.
These adjustments are made through the phyical knobs on the machine or through the newly redesigned xBloom app. Users can brew with the Omni brewer, or use any small compatible brewer with any roasted coffees.
“This is a machine that people can grow into,” Richard Xu, CEO, CDO and co-founder of xBloom parent company TBDx, told Daily Coffee News at the SCA Expo. “When they start developing their journey into specialty coffee, they can start trying the pods, they can get the tasting profiles, and then they can start experimenting with all these parameters.”
In Freesolo mode, users can operate any of the machine’s individual modules independently and on demand.
The scale in the base can weigh anything up to 2 kilograms (70.5 ounces). Meanwhile, the built-in flow meter and instant flow-through hot water system were designed to add precise volumes of water, whether for brew methods such as French Press or Aeropress, or even for non-coffee applications such as tea or oatmeal.
“There’s a lot of possibilities and use cases,” said Xu. “This isn’t just a brewer.”
The all-aluminum original xBloom, which includes a reusable dripper but is generally centered on the proprietary pod brewing, will also remain in production with its higher retail price of $799.
“We’re still getting inquiries about the first gen, which is more for the luxury seeker,” Xu, a former Apple product designer, told DCN. “For the second gen, we are optimizing a lot of the supply chain and components such that we are able to produce a more capable machine at a lower price range, but the sacrifice is basically that, although we’re using premium plastic for its enclosure, when compared to anodized aluminum — nothing compares with that.”
New Vision
In addition to the new machine, xBloom recently launched DrinkGlobal, its online marketplace featuring bags of coffee from a handful of roasting brands from throughout the world.
The company is working with roasters to develop recipes for each whole-bean offering. Users can download coffee-specific information from an included card, then tweak recipes to their tastes in Copilot mode.
New xBloom brewers awaiting shipment.
“We are no longer focusing 100% on xPods. We are also reselling a lot of the retail bags. This is a big movement on our side,” said Xu. “In 2024, the big direction is that we want to up our frequency of rolling out new coffee products. Our coffee products team is getting busier and busier talking to different roasters, and I think this is truly what a hardware-enabled marketplace can do. We’re not just selling the machine. Our mission is to democratize the fine coffee experience.”
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Howard Bryman Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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