Hi, this idea for a post came about after reading the other post asking people to describe their daily brew method.
I’ve been into coffee ever since I started chasing the ability to get decent coffee at home that’s strong enough so that most of the cup can be hot milk.
Cafetiere was always disappointing, the flavour always seemed to be a bit… “woody” if that makes sense? Almost like you’d expect ground coffee beans to taste like, and not the “actual extracted coffee flavour” that you’d expect.
I never bothered with any of the pourover methods because I couldn’t see how they were any good for “milk drinks”, they just seemed like different ways of making caferiere strength coffee but with more control over the brew.
I was never aware of aeropress really early on, and when I did hear about it it just looked like another way of making filter strength coffee so I steered clear of that.
Then I discovered the Moka pot which I used for years by cramming it with as much coffee as I could get into it which used to get pretty close to espresso strength but obviously not proper espresso.
Eventually we bought a Bambino Plus in lockdown and have been knocking out at least decent 2 lattes per day ever since (usually more if my wife is home)
The confusing thing for me has always been that the guys I have worked with over the years who have been really into their coffee have always used pourover or aeropress, and I’ve always been a little bit puzzled as to why they haven’t upgraded to an espresso machine yet (these people are all well paid and could definitely afford one if they wanted one, looking at the grinders they used to buy)
With all of this context in mind, what is the attraction to pourover or aeropress style coffee vs. espresso? E.g. espresso can = americano if it’s just a case of liking watered down coffee without a lot of milk, just add hot water. Please sell me on the idea of pourover or similar methods 🙂
If you’re mixing lots of milk with coffee (a latte or just filter coffee with lots of milk) pourover won’t appeal to you.
The draw of pourover, I think, is to make very flavorful coffee that you drink black. Technically, the pourover advantage is complete control over temperature, coffee-water exposure time, and to get really even extraction (you can make sure all the ground get soaked)… but since it uses a paper filter? The resultant cup of coffee is also very clean (unlike, say, French press).
Also, a lot of artistry is made of how you set your grounds in the pourover filter, how you pour the water, and other things that are probably a little meaningless, but fun to play around with.
Similarly, aeropress gives the same control over variables but uses a more standardized micro filter in combination with immersion brewing (or like French press but with a filter and some pressure). The micro filter allows you to use finer grounds which probably means more complete extraction.
Either method will require a hot water source (usually a kettle). Neither method will be particularly expensive for the gear.
Mine uses a fine mesh metal filter that, imo, doesnt taste any different from paper filters.
I mean, paper filters are technically able to absorb oils that a metal mesh filter wont.
That may be true. But I’ve tried both and I don’t taste a difference. So I went with the less wasteful method.
That’s fair. I don’t think coffee filters are all that problematic, waste-wise though. They decompose just fine in at-home compost piles.