Mazzer Philos Review (2026): Sweet, Zero-Retention Grinds

Commercial café prime astatine home. Oh God, the syrupy and saccharine espresso. Very debased java legume retention. Best-in-class precision connected espresso grinds. Easy attraction and cleaning. Durable, replaceable, mostly metallic build.

Better with espresso than drip coffee. Hopper is reasonably small. Large countertop footprint.

Viewed from the side, the Mazzer Philos java grinder looks a small spot similar a laser blaster made for the hands of a giant. Its 400-watt centrifugal purrs similar a apparel dryer erstwhile I flip the switch. It is elegant successful its way, possibly adjacent handsome. But it's besides daunting, lightly industrial, and the size of a tiny dog. It announces seriousness. Its $1,500 terms tag announces akin seriousness.

But this is fitting. The Mazzer Philos is, successful fact, rather serious.

If ever you needed impervious that a grinder is conscionable arsenic important arsenic your espresso machine, what you bash is this: Use the Philos to grind java for beauteous overmuch immoderate espresso machine. Your cupful of java volition inactive travel retired truthful full-bodied and syrupy you'd curse it was fed by Willy Wonka's cocoa river. This Philos is liable for immoderate of the astir delicate and full-bodied cups of espresso I’ve made astatine location successful the past year, coaxing beauteous sweetness from lighter-roast beans amended known for bracing acidity.

The Philos is simply a precise and thoughtfully designed device, portion of a caller question of coffee grinders that’s been blurring the lines betwixt location espresso and commercialized instrumentality meant for a high-volume café. Despite its size—it weighs 28 pounds and is much than a ft long—I’ll person a precise hard clip dislodging this grinder from my counter.

After a period of testing, the Philos has made a steadfast statement for java grinders that outgo arsenic overmuch arsenic an entry-level ebike, particularly if you emotion light- and medium-roast espresso. The Philos lone truly justifies its terms if you're an espresso lover. But it besides offers a astute diagnostic that beggars astir different grinders: astir zero-retention grinding. I’ll excavation successful deeper connected that later.

A Commercial Café Grinder astatine Home

Mazzer is an aged sanction successful java grinders, known for precision and tanklike durability ever since its archetypal Super Jolly grinder rolled disconnected the accumulation enactment 50 years ago. For ages, I person looked longingly astatine the whirring Mazzer java grinders that enactment the counters of seemingly fractional the third-wave espresso cafés I visit.

But until recently, you wouldn’t spot a Mazzer successful anyone’s location kitchen. Expense aside, the grinders were conscionable excessively big. The elephantine legume hoppers connected astir Mazzer models are attuned to the needs of a high-volume java shop, not a highly caffeinated powerfulness couple.

The Philos, a flat-burr grinder that went into wide circulation past year, is possibly the archetypal Mazzer grinder genuinely suited to the location market. Increasingly, Mazzer seems to beryllium selling to location users arsenic well.

Like galore of the location java grinders WIRED recommends arsenic our favorites, the Philos is chiefly a single-dose java grinder. First, you measurement retired your beans connected a java scale. Then you determination the beans into the hopper and grind until the hopper is empty. Philos’ hopper is large capable for astir 60 grams of beans, conscionable shy of the measurement you’d request for an eight-cup carafe of drip coffee.

Like a batch of high-end grinders these days, the Philos comes with your prime of burrs. Most location grinders successful the entry-level terms scope usage conical burrs, fundamentally a drill-shaped cogwheel that whirs against a metallic collar. Philos comes with 1 of 2 level burr designs: rotating, jagged-cut, doughnut-shaped discs whose region from each different determines the size of the java grounds.

Both burr designs connected the Philos are proprietary, whether an i189 set that's champion for mean to acheronian roasts, oregon a newer i200 set designed to propulsion clarity and sweetness from lighter-roast and much acidic beans. Mine arrived with the latter, which suited maine fine: I’ve got a strong caller emotion for playing astir with lighter-roast espresso beans.

Operationally, the Philos tin beryllium configured for stepless grinding, but I spot small request for it. The Philos has 145 adjustments, each representing a quality of conscionable 6 microns. In practice, espresso volition hap betwixt 20 and 40 connected the dial. Pour-over and drip commencement astatine much similar 80. It's casual to reset the zero constituent of the grinder if you'd like, though I didn't person origin to bash this. If you alteration your caput astir which burrs you like, swapping burrs isn’t precise time-consuming oregon difficult, arsenic agelong arsenic you’ve got a Phillips-head screwdriver.

Despite the Philos' powerfulness and the 65-decibel hum of its motor, the dependable of java grinding itself is comparatively diffuse, possibly due to the fact that the instrumentality dampens vibration.

What I didn’t expect was however forgiving this grinder would beryllium with light-to-medium beans, successful presumption of coaxing retired fantabulous flavors without harsh bitterness, adjacent erstwhile I crushed finely and pulled precise agelong espresso shots. Particle size investigation with the Difluid Omni showed that connected good espresso settings, the Philos was importantly much precise than grinders successful the $200 to $500 range, with less fines and beauteous overmuch nary coarse boulders—as 1 would, of course, person each close to expect. This gave maine blessed country for error, with little hazard of harsh disconnected notes.

It’s agelong been a saw of espresso nerds that grinders substance arsenic overmuch oregon much than the instrumentality you usage to brew the coffee, and truthful I tested this. I utilized java crushed with the Philos to propulsion shots connected machines ranging from Breville’s top-line dual-boiler to a semiautomatic from Ninja and an entry-level De'Longhi. Not lone did I execute syrupy-rich results connected the Ninja I’d ne'er seen earlier connected that machine, astatine slightest 1 of the Ninja shots I pulled was among my favorites of caller months.

Clean Slate, Clean Coffee

Perhaps the biggest azygous selling constituent of the Philos is its assertion to zero retention. Zero retention is, of course, the unreachable imagination of a java grinder. The thought is that if you enactment 18 grams of java beans into your grinder, the aforesaid 18 grams of java should beryllium what spills into your grind cup.

In practice, this isn’t usually what happens. The burrs successful your java grinder are afloat of small ridges that similar to trap java grounds earlier they scope their intended destination. A grinder’s interior mightiness incorporate aggregate gullies and dormant ends. Static energy means that java fines tin affix themselves anyplace on the route. Depending connected your grinder, the beans that extremity up successful your grind cupful mightiness see a half-gram oregon much of stale java grounds from the past clip you crushed java beans.

You don’t privation this. But to debar brewing java grounds from yesterday’s batch, the accustomed solution is to grind other beans and past propulsion them away. You astir apt don’t privation this, either.

Philos advertises “zero retention” grinding, and the instrumentality does a batch to execute this. The burrs are oriented vertically, which helps. So bash a abbreviated chute, vibration dampeners, and a metallic sheet that serves to crushed the instrumentality against static electricity. The instrumentality has a small spring-loaded thumper to sound escaped immoderate stray burrs into the grind cup. It besides comes with a “dose finisher” you tin insert into the grind chute to marque really, truly definite you got each the java grounds.

All of these anti-retention measures inactive didn't adhd up to zero, but the Philos gets remarkably close. To trial this, I opened the instrumentality and brushed oregon shook retired each the leftover coffee, past weighed the result. On filter coffee, adjacent without the dose finisher, the magnitude of java grounds trapped successful the grinder was little than a tenth of a gram—an magnitude excessively tiny to registry connected my scale.

For finer-ground espresso, I got person to 0.1 grams, debased capable I’m astir apt not going to sensation the difference. Which is to say, I won't consciousness the request to grind a fewer beans and past propulsion the grounds distant each clip I swap bags oregon grind sizes. This amounts to beauteous convenience.

Caveats and Wrinkles

But with a grinder whose suggested retail terms has crept up to astir $1,500—a terms that’s inched up dilatory aft a preorder connection person to $1,000—one feels astatine liberty to prime nits wherever they exist.

I remained genuinely impressed by the Philos’ espresso performance, and with the i200 burrs, this was particularly notable for lighter roasts. But connected coarser grinds much suitable for drip and pour-over coffee, the grinder was much apt to propulsion a fewer (but not many) coarse boulders into the mix. I got beauteous aromatics from immoderate lighter-roast coffees, but results weren’t amended than the bracing clarity of flavors I tin execute utilizing the Fellow Ode Gen 2 ($400), which inactive remains my apical prime for drip and pour-over java but is not overly suitable for espresso.

The Philos remains a genuinely fantabulous all-rounder, 1 of fewer grinders that tin assertion to service good for some espresso and drip. But it's champion for espresso lovers who besides hap to similar drip coffee, not vice versa. Which is to accidental it’ll bash your pour-overs justice, but if you’re precise picky, you mightiness inactive make a wandering eye.

I really rather emotion the small locking gross beneath the hopper, which you tin adjacent truthful that beans don’t driblet into the grinder chute until the grinder’s already running. It’s a thoughtful diagnostic to debar legume jams that tin originate from full beans lodging successful the grinder. This said, I’ve besides seen reports online of grinder jams occurring erstwhile you hide to unopen this gate. I haven’t been capable to recreate this occupation myself, truthful this is simply a mostly theoretical concern.

And last, I conjecture I privation the Philos’ hopper held conscionable 10 much grams, capable to brew an eight-cup drip java carafe without splitting my grind into aggregate batches oregon feeding continuously. But Italy is not a civilization that often conceives of the request for a 40-ounce java pot, and connected a grinder mostly devised for espresso and pour-over nerds, this mightiness beryllium akin to asking a banana to beryllium a pear.

But these are kvetches. Our top-pick grinder for astir people, the ingeniously designed Baratza Encore ESP ($200), produces fantabulous espresso and drip java astatine a seventh of the price. But for lighter and mean roasts especially, the Philos with i200 burrs achieves a fullness of assemblage that's precise hard to execute southbound of 4 figures. You tin not lone sensation the difference, you tin spot it.

The highly debased retention allows you to power out, and dial in, idiosyncratic beans overmuch much easily. In presumption of physique prime and materials and durable-feeling heft, the Philos acold outstrips its little costly competitors. It is simply a sturdily built, finely tuned beast whose parts are mostly modular and replaceable. In a satellite filled with plastic, the Philos is mostly devoid of it.

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