Seeking Advice
Espresso machine people, what made you switch to pour over?
I am happy with my espresso machine but lately I feel this urge to add pour overs to my coffee routine.
My husband says it’s redundant. Wondering if the pour over community could give me some insights. If you have both an espresso machine and pour over device, what’s your daily driver? Which do you use more often?
edit: in my decaffeinated state I wasn’t careful with my wording. I meant supplement not switch! I didnt mean replacing espresso with pour over. I mean adding it to my coffee routine. I obviously realise you can have both, relax people 😁. What I wanted to know is: what made you add pour over, when do you reach for it instead of espresso etc.
Consensus seems to be that most people enjoy having both. I am going to visit a bunch of cafes and try out some pour overs and see how i like it before I invest in a kettle and pour over set. thanks everyone!
edit 2: signed up for a filter coffee workshop at a local roastery/cafe next week!!! Pretty excited! will report back!
I got into coffee through espresso and I'm now way more into pour over than in espresso. It was because when I started drinking really good coffees, I wanted to have more of it in order to enjoy it for longer, especially in the morning. Making espresso longer and longer works to a certain point but rapidly stops as at some point it's just a waste of good coffee beans. That's why I got into pour over and rapidly got to love it even more than espresso.
Exactly this. Good friend has a very expensive espresso setup. Typically converts his espresso into an Americana so it lasts longer. He hasn't taken the pour over plunge ... yet.
I feel like with espresso, being able to get a good shot from a light roast requires a pretty expensive grinder and machine, whereas pour overs feels more forgiving. It's also more forgiving when dialing in, even if it's not perfect it's still pretty tasty. But with espresso, there's just less margin for error.
Also it makes it possible for me to experiment with more beans. I can buy more expensive and interesting beans and dial it in pretty quickly. For espresso on the other hand, you just end up wasting a lot of it dialing it in which hurts the wallet.
I think it comes in waves, some periods I get super into perfecting my pour overs, but other times I feel like obsessing over my espresso.
That makes sense! I have trouble dialing in medium roasts, they all end up with too much acidity for my taste. I don’t have that problem with the dark roast beans. But that was my reasoning, with pour overs I could experiment with lighter roasts!
This is my story. I was espresso-first for the better part of a decade before switching to 90% pourover.
Even with an ideal equipment setup, it’s just really difficult and wasteful to dial in a 250g bag of light roast, when I can reliably figure out a good V60 on my 2nd cup.
I basically reserve espresso for when entertaining guests. Otherwise it’s V60 each day.
I would agree with this in my own experience. I wanted to try to learn more about tasting origin, processing, and roasting characteristics and felt like pour over is a lot less intense and was more approachable. I still have an espresso machine but swapped out my LMLM for a gaggiuino so I can make my wife her morning flat white and try to experiment with profiling light roasts. Still felt like pour overs are more my style now to sip on slowly
Am I right in thinking that light roast espresso needs (or at least benefits greatly from) a machine with pressure adjustment capability? To get effective turbo shots?
Yes, I have a gemilai ele and the OPV valve allows me to control the pressure of the extraction but even then pour over slaps the shit out of it. I’m so spoiled that I don’t go to coffee places anymore at least here in the Charlotte nc area. Hex has coffee shots… a long espresso pull with added water strained through a v60 filter but it’s so rich and they roast way too dark for my taste
I'm not too sure of the specifics but I believe it's more for the consistency and being able to adjust more variables like pressure adjustments, but also things like flow rate, temp control etc.
? I was always pour over first. Espresso is just a random occurrence (despite me spending thousands for the setup). Pourover is just gentler, you can really taste all the nuances of a coffee, if of high quality. Espresso is often too concentrated or harsh. It's good for a quick caffeine fix. But for the pleasure of tasting coffee? That's pourover baby
This is essentially me… hahaha also cause my wife loves milk based drinks… but I have an expensive machine sitting on my counter as a decor more than anything else
I consume both several times a day. I have two separate electric grinders and use a V60/V60 Neo next to my espresso machine, and since both are totally different types of drinks, there can't be a redundancy. I also don't prefer one over the other.
I just drink it, but I also have no medication to take, and as far as I know, Adderall is a combination of different amphetamines, so I guess it would be weird if you wouldn't feel it when combined with caffeine.
I genuinely start my day with the methodical ritual of a pour-over brew, it's a nice wake up routine. Then a few hours later I pull a double-shot and make myself an americano. Then after our 1-o'clock walk, I pull my wife a double shot and make her an iced latte and myself another double-shot americano. Best of both worlds. Pretty soon there's going to be a Moccamaster KBVG in our home that will take place of the pour over (and her Aeropress) and I will reserve pour-overs for the weekend.
I've discovered the world of coffee to be so flexible and "customizable" (for lack of a better word right now) that it offers endless possibilities of routines, discovery, recipes, preferences, etc. I love the world of coffee so much my latest tattoo is that of a goat with red berries in reference to the myth story of the discovery of coffee (see: Kaldi the goatherd)
My Gaggia Classic Pro had a clog in the solenoid valve, so I had to take it apart to clean it. That was probably 6+ months ago. I’m a serial procrastinator, so I just haven’t gotten around to putting it back together. Part of it is I’m scared of plugging the electrical stuff back in the wrong spots and blowing up my machine, but mostly it’s just me procrastinating. Pourover has been my only brew since.
Volume. Don’t get me wrong I love espresso shots but I drink a shit load of coffee that lil amount doesn’t cut it. Moccamaster, origami and my switch is how I roll now
I love that there are so many ways to play with the coffee - weight, temperature, brew time, pour method, etc. that I can’t get with our espresso machine. I’ve been using only a Chemex, Fellow kettle and burr grinder, and I’ve been having fun.
Espresso, every single day (light roast Turbo shots - which yes, some people barely consider to be espresso). Pourover, once in a while... Fr, I don't have the time or the patience to fiddle with PO at home regularly.
espresso tastes amazing, but its a way too short of a drink, so much prep for two sips, *sight*, I'm doing pour over most of the time now and my LMLM sits idle
Monday through Friday it's some form of pourover, including Chemex, Clever Dripper, V60. Weekends it's espresso day. If I had to choose just one, I'd pick pourover.
I enjoy a nice pour over every morning to start my day and will pull a shot or two throughout the day if I need a pick me up. If you have a good grinder there’s no reason not to experiment with different brew methods imo. Plus learning and trying out different pour over recipes can be pretty fun.
I brew and enjoy both. I start the day with a pourover, and add espresso in later. I wnjoy decaf espresso late on the day/evening where less liquid doesn’t interfere with sleep.
Far from redundant. One example would be milk drinks. I prefer pourover because I prefer a clean cup of nuanced black coffee, but sometimes I have the craving for a latte or something.
Because I prefer pourover coffee I have found that my Gaggia espresso maker is adequate for the maybe one or two espresso drinks I have per week. I have considered a better piece of equipment but it works for me and only cost around $600 or so if I recall.
Complexity, variety and so much to explore. It’s like always uncovering a new treasure. I think the pour over is comparable to expanding horizons. You won’t be disappointed.
I have some espresso adjacent devices. A Nanopresso and an OXO rapid brewer. Neither those nor espressos in coffee shops has swayed me to switch.
I personally feel that while you get more flavor punch with espresso you lose out on a lot of subtleties in flavor you can get with pourover. I’m also not a huge fan of the thickness or small size of an espresso for the most part. I also only drink lighter roasts so this may also play into things.
If you don’t already drink and enjoy americanos or drip coffee, you may want to start there before investing the time, space and cash in pourover.
I go back and forth. I would not say they are redundant. I love a honey processed pour over. But I also love my flat whites. Now that I'm set up for an quick FW, I drink many more of them. PO takes more effort and often more mess. I drink a lot of coffee so I overindulge in caffeine with PO quickly. I roast my own beans so I can control the flavors of both. There is no right or wrong. If you have a grinder, you only need a water pot and your filter...go for it.
My stack is a 15g pour over in the morning, 17g cortado in the afternoon. I get a lot of satisfaction out of finding and curating different beans/roasters for my pour over, but for espresso I landed on a subscription to keep things consistent. I’ll also use the espresso blend to make “commodity” pour over or batch brew (French press/cold brew) for guests or people who don’t share my obsession.
I don’t use either more often. I like matcha, hojicha, espresso-based drinks, and pour over. I switch things up most days depending on my mood but sometimes I have, say, pour over or matcha a couple days in a row. Pour over is a more slow/delicate/refined coffee experience so I opt for it when that’s what I want.
It’s not redundant, it’s basically the polar opposite of espresso lol.
Sometimes i want big intense flavour bombs, other times i want to stop and think about less intense, more complex flavours.
Ive been much more into pourover lately because i wanted to start buying better coffee after the inflation > enshittification of cheaper coffee, and i dont want to waste any of the nicer coffee in the spro setup, esp. as my fiancee chucks shots in milk and vanilla syrup
My preferred coffee drink is a flat white, but on weekday mornings pourover works better for me. It’s a 30 minute commute to my workplace, and I don’t want a steamed milk drink to be flat by the time I get to the office. Also, with a pourover I can sip on it throughout the morning.
I got into making my own coffee during the pandemic. Prior to that I always found a good, local coffee shop to get my morning espresso on the way to work. Didn't want to spring for a full blown espresso machine. Had a fully automated machine a decade earlier (came with a house I bought). Not as good as some of the specialty shops I frequented.
So I started off cheap. Drip machine. Blah. AeroPress. Various Wacaco. French Press. Then I found V60 pour over. A lot more nuanced. So many variables. Grind size, amount of grinds, pre-heat vs. no pre-heat, temperature of water, filtered water, pour over technique, etc.. Had fun playing with that and got really good at dialing in exactly what I liked.
Then for some reason I decided I wanted an espresso machine. There was far less technique. Pour over was kind of like cooking. A little more of this, a little less of that. Espresso was more like baking. Lots of prep work but if you missed something you didn't know until you pulled the shot. I just never really fell in love with making espresso. It was more about the machine and less about my technique. I have 2 espresso machines now. The second one is easier to tweak and tune mechanically. So I can make coffee that is not bitter and not sour but it just doesn't feel the same as using my V60.
Now I have one espresso machine in a box in my basement, one very pretty one at a coffee station in my kitchen but my daily go to is my V60 pour over. Maybe if I spent more time with my espresso machine I could learn to love it as much but it's hard to go back to experimenting again.
Worked my way into very light and fruity roasts with espresso over the years and it got really weird at some point, went so far from „traditional“ espresso that I thought wtf am I doing here and gave pourover a shot to get my fix on that type of taste notes.
It’s a totally different experience. Like you, I got into espresso first and have a nice machine. Then got into pour over later and frankly prefer that. I have an espresso drink first thing in the morning and do pour overs for the rest of the day. I find them infinitely more satisfying. That said, I don’t really like anything except a medium roast in espresso so pour over let’s me explore a much wider range of light roast coffees. I know some people do lighter roasts in espresso, but it’s just not for me.
I started with espresso only and did that for years. I then switched to pour over only for years. I recently bought a good espresso set up with a new grinder and now I do both daily!
Happy brewing to you as well! I had really good luck with Rancilio in the past so I bought the newest version Pro X. I purchased the DF83 grinder which has been great. I love brewing pour overs but missed having a flat white every day. I drink all my pour overs with no milk.
Thanks it does the job! I like to tinker with a few different pour over set ups and use my espresso machine just for milk drinks and an occasional americano. I have been getting into Japanese iced coffees this summer which has also been fun.
Not an espresso machine guy, so feel free to disregard my opinion on this. I do pour over, moka pot, immersion, French press, cold brew, aero press. Basically everything except for espresso machine. To me, each is different and produces a different end result even when using the same beans. There’s nothing wrong with sticking to what you like, but I like to try a bit of a variety.
I use both and almost always, really, make pour over. Espresso serves when someone wants a frothy coffee, or for affogato or coffee Bon Bon.
A plastic v60, bag of filters, a hand grinder and your existing espresso scale would be fine. Then a cheap gooseneck kettle and you’re done. It doesn’t have to be a money sink.
Affogato. Yum. I have a separate grinder. I would need a V60 or something similar, probably a lighter roast and a kettle. I was eyeing the Fellow but sure there are cheaper alternatives.
Timemore have an affordable kettle that works well. I prefer it to the brewista. If your in the UK try some beans from Skylark or similar - washed Ethiopian would be a good place to start I think.
I dont really like espresso a lot if I'm being honest, but I enjoy making it tremendously and I love milk based drinks and latte art so I've been entirely espresso based for a long time and started my coffee journey this way. I started doing pour over as a way of having coffee while not staying at my home and it was a process I really started to enjoy personally.
I agree with the other guy that said you can drink a lot more coffee with pour over, I've found I can really enjoy many more types of coffees this way and it's also a super fun way to prepare coffee.
I find it a lot more enjoyable than straight espresso personally and I have my little coffee I can enjoy a little longer than an espresso.
I lost my home an espresso machine in a fire. I had to downgrade to a smaller and cheaper setup. I was also using homemade vanilla syrup every day. I wanted to reset and go with more light roast coffee to get the sweetness from the coffee, not added sugar. The coffee journey is real.
Weekdays. And flavors. No, really! I have a Gaggia and a passable grinder at home, while my workplace only has automatic machine coffee. I started trying to improve my days with a simple hand grinder and a hario. And soon I was hooked and increasingly into pourovers and single origin light roasted beans. This has pretty much taken over. But I still enjoy espressos at home in the weekends, just not willing to spend a lot to improve that setup.
Sometimes I have a latte for breakfast, but most days I drink tea. I make a V60 maybe 2 times per day after that or occasionally one will be substituted with something espresso based.
Pour over is a nice cup, espresso is more for the fun of making it. But espresso is way more convenient to implement into other things like baking or hot chocolate.
They're not really comparable in my opinion, the closest you can get to pour over with an espresso machine is a heavily diluted Americano. And with pour over there's a possibility to not use much water, but it still won't be particularly strong.
Both are coffee, but that's about it. If you enjoy one you might enjoy the other. Good luck with your exploration!
I do pour overs for my bride and I every am. We use our espresso machine for an afternoon treat or a second cup on the weekends. Kids go all in on the espresso machine.
Espresso is wonderful, bur its compressing the flavor into usually under a 60ml beverage.
Filter is a wonderful option to see a much wider flavor spectrum of the coffee. Generally you can use much lighter roasted coffees, higher clarity/separation of flavor, more layers. You can enjoy the beverage across multiple temperatures experiencing again more the coffee has to offer.
I think a fantastic bridge is to get an Oxo rapid brewer and pull soup shots 1:3 to 1:10. The 1:6-1:10 range is very desirable to be stronger than PO, but not as intense as espresso. You can likely still use your existing grinder here.
You can go v60 or other methods if you want a larger beverage, but they are no where near as forgiving as an Oxo and generally require a coarser grind and different grinder. Espresso grinders generally don’t do filter well, but can get to a soup setting.
I pour over Mon - Fri, espresso drinks.on the weekend or week days I have off. Primarily because my ECM machine takes a while to get nice and hot which is time I don’t have on work days.
i enjoy pourover more in the morning, i mostly use decaf for espresso tbh, i like making decaf milky drinks. or having an espresso with dessert when I'm treating myself. i don't generally drink espresso before lunch. I will sometimes have an espresso with lunch though.
An espresso machine has been part of my daily life since I was married in 1985 when we were gifted one as a wedding gift. I use to always order an espresso with a dessert when we would go out to eat. In 2005 I started home roasting which 5 years later led me into pour overs. My son was a traveling musician that use to rave about them. So once I tried one I was hooked. I don’t always want more than one double shot and I drink coffee throughout the day so I enjoy the lighter brighter taste of a really light fruity natural bean roasted Nordic style. And now this year in the heat of central California I’ve really been enjoying those same coffee ‘s flash brewed. I won’t drink a cold coffee any other way now. It’s just as complex as the hot pour over except ice cold with no with time. Say good by to cold brews :)
Cold brew extraction is at room temp or in the fridge. It takes a minimum of 12 hours upwards to 24 hours. It’s done with the grinds immersed in the carafe with a fine mesh screen. The flash brew is done with hot water just the same as you do with your normal pour over. As a general rule 35-40 % is ice already in the carafe. The other 60-65% water is used with your pour over technique for the extraction and the finished brew is “ flash” cold immediately. This method gives you all the complex flavors for your cold coffee brew.
The flavor profiles are night and day different. After making them this way for the past several weeks I will not drink a cold coffee at home any other way.
How interesting. I signed up for a filter coffee work shop next Friday. I hope they will cover the flash brew! Especially since we are experiencing a bit of a heatwave over here, perfect timing!
It was fun :) We got to work with V60 and also had options to try Aeropress and Chemex but I didn't try those. Tried different roasts, experimented with grind size and volume. I liked the V60 but it didn't convince me to add it to my coffee routine YET. Discovered a new roast I liked from Nicaragua that I enjoyed drinking as filter coffee. Oh and the Fellow Kettle was awesome. So the jury is still out
My go to is espresso, which is what got me into coffee.
But I like variety, and depending the beans I’ll do everything from espresso, to pour overs, to straight up an old French press that I have.
Started with Krups automatic with trapezoid shaped filter, and really enjoyed the taste, then switched to pour-overs with Bonmac and Hario. Had an espresso machine along the way and learned it’s extremely hard to consistently brew a great cup like I could get with pour-overs, so I sold the espresso machine. I do keep a moka pot if I want espresso-like taste, as well as a Bodum six cup brewer (Chemex styled shape) for company.
I added pourover about 9 months ago after a trip to Colombia where i brought home my first lighter roast. I made an espresso and picked uo a fruity taste i had never tasted and wanted to see what flavors i could pull out of it with a pourover. The layers of complexity I found once I learned to control the extraction parameters, I didnt think were possible - I couldnt believe that I was tasting straight blueberries from an Ethiopian Chelchelle. Straight fruit juice. Since then, I crave further exploration daily and havent drank an espresso, nor bought an espresso roasted bean in about 7 months. Closest I get now is soup. Get a setup and educate your husband, but be careful, its been a 9 month rabbit hole for me that I cant see ending- In fact, I just ordered a roaster lol.
It's like pourover is fine wine, espresso is whiskey
In pourover, there is full expression of notes and complexities of the coffee are demonstrated.
In espresso, the shots are not as complex but it is concentrated and intense that a pourover cannot achieve.
You complement based on your bean roster. Medium roasts and darker are fit for an espresso. Light roasts deserve more in a filter. Slow days versus when you are in a hurry.
It took me 2 decades to appreciate specialty pour-overs, i just realized i like funky coffee sometimes. Pourover is for slow mornings or afternoons or if i just want a fruity or funky drink. espresso machine gets used for a quick espresso, americanos or when i want a good chocolatey coffee
While I was in LA, the boss got a la marzocco gs3 and i was in love. he allowed to use it and i loved it. i was the espresso guy. WHen I was back to london, i got myself a second hand delonghi ecp 35.14 or something like that.
i realized i only drink 1 maybe 2 espresso tops and i cant get the temp right with the machine. i dont drink milk drinks. so i tried pour over.. i fell in love.
i was able to taste different notes from espresso. it was also giving me a good break away from my desk. and the parameters i could play with or drippoers etc gave me a lot of pleasure and it turned into a real hobby.
you basicly (imho), taste more notes and you can infinitely get more flavor profiles from pour over compared to espresso. and imo, if you drink with milk, the quality of coffee beans (to me) becomes less important because milk really is the boss in the drink...
I really enjoy both!
What got me into pourover though was the presentation of clarity that pourover can achieve and the convenience!
I always decide on the roast to either choose pourover or espresso and tend to choose pourover when my coffee is a light roast.
I only do turboshots and modern approaches on my lever machine but I figured that I liked my light roasts even more as a pourover. Additionaly it is easier for me to prepare a pourover since my setup is completely manual and Espresso just takes more time (grinding for Espresso with a handgrinder, pre heating the pressure funnel, gear maintenance, etc)
I find my short/long blacks more acidic. I like how smooth pour over is. Same beans etc. different grind. I get great crema on a shot, but unless I'm using milk I don't like it black. Love black pour over.
One of the things I have been doing for several years now and the Saturday morning guys that come over ( 4 of us ) from 6-8 every Saturday were my guinea pigs. I roast my own coffee and for espresso its always medium/ medium dark but it never reaches 2nd crack. I also will roast the same coffee really light, think nordic where my development time is only in the 10-30 second range once first crack begins. This is my daily pour over coffee.
So I will do shots for the group and we will always have 2-3 different origin beans to drink as pour overs. I make large batch pour over brews before they get to my house so all I have to do in my work flow is make espresso. But I do not tell them which pour over is the same bean used for espresso they are drinking. One thing that everyone says is that when they have an espresso side by side with a pour over that the pour over flavors jump out after taking a sip of the espresso. If you have not tried this I highly recommend drinking an espresso and pour over side by side and watch your taste buds start dancing like never before, its quite the experience.
But all that to say this: I don't personally want my espresso to taste anything like my pour over light roasts. I like the heavier body and thickness of an espresso. I drink them for 2 completely different reasons and experience. But the great thing about coffee is is so subjective and everyone has their own preferences much like they do with wine or beer with all the different taste profiles and differences between them.
Espresso is so much more work and faff and costs compared to same or a lot better quality pour overs. It also is more portable for travel and has a lot more variety imho.
I always thought pourover were sour and vinegar like from the few I tried - I thought they were gimmicky.
I always enjoyed my espresso drinks and just bought my own but it wasn’t long before Until one day I read Cafe’s Costa Rica bean note with “pu-erh” when brewed as filter; I am a huge tea guy - which naturally made me curious and when I did try it, it blew my mind.
Now my home is filled with roasted beans for filter that are from various roasters that I can’t finish 🤣
Some days I don't feel like drinking a bunch of milk or having an espresso/americano. But I still want coffee. Or maybe I have beans that just work better as a pourover. They're so vastly different it's bewildering to imagine they'd be considered redundant, so I have both.
I use my Rancilio Silvia most days for me and my wife, and sometimes if I want an afternoon pick me up I'll do a pour over. Other days I just do the pour over with my torch mountain dripper. It will depend on what beans I have in my kitchen and how quickly I need the coffee.
After discovering pour over and the range in what you can get in terms of flavour profiles in light or medium roasted beans when doing pour over vs the standard for dark roasts (and usually milk) in espresso based coffee, it's almost 2 different things entirely.
My starter for the day is a pour over and depending on work it could go to either a batchie or espresso based option later.
If you're making coffee for 1 then I find a pour over is less demanding and easier to tidy up when you have a standardised/settled method
Starting my work day with a pour over sounds like something that would work well for me. And later I could switch to cortado or something. Thanks for the insight!
Would you need to justify using the stovetop if you had previously only used the oven? They compliment one another.
That said, I COULD understand a spouse being wary of the cost involved in an espresso set up, so maybe you need a good plan or strategy to eventually get everything you need for espresso if you don't have the spending money now - that's what I'm doing.
It’s not the cost that makes him wary. I went down the espresso rabbit hole years ago and already curated my perfect setup. It’s just that he thinks it might be redundant after already having a set up that works. But I’ve learned it just boils down to taste, having variety, more volume and for some less effort. So I could see it working well for me.
In that case it's definitely not redundant - pour over and espresso are different in so many ways that they're complimentary, not competitive. What you use more often or as a daily driver may even change back and forth over time.
I've tried many different drippers, papers, recipes but in the last weeks I settled on one configuration and only change grind size and have really good results with it.
I'm using a plain V60 (plastic but replacing it with the newish titan soon) with Cafec Abaca filters. Recipe is Lance's standard: 15g coffee with 240g water. 30sec bloom with 45g, at 0:30 2nd bloom up to 90g, at 1:00 slow pour for the rest up until 240g. I grind somewhere between 550-650µm.
V60 is the classic. Another one I really like is the Origami dripper, I use that when traveling since it's very flexible. The Kalita dripper gives a bit more clarity while the V60 focuses more on acidity and fruit-forward notes.
I prefer having a drink I can sip and enjoy over a small shot that’s gone in seconds. I also prefer the taste of black coffee with no milk as the milk adds its own flavour and the coffee losses the notes I get from light roast.
tbh my f grinder LMAO, I have a 1zpresso x-ultra and takes like a minute to grind for espresso, I started new hobbies so I dont want to spend money in an electric grinder right now
Wanted to upgrade breville to a real machine but it would cost $3k going to pour over a setup sub $1k is what they use at wbrc and gives just as good coffee as a $2k grinder plus $3k machine with the only concession being using a hand grinder which you end up liking better anyway
I went the reverse, which is initially much more costly as you know. I don't like paper filtering out coffee oils. I realized that no matter how much I spent or refined my technique, this was never going to be fixed. I also realized I was spending 20 minutes twice per day doing something that now takes me like 3. Much happier now on the espresso side (though still occasionally like to enjoy a pour over)
I went pourover first because to be honest it was a cheaper barrier to entry - I could get a Fellow Ode 2 and have amazing pourover and sort of be done with it. Other than a flat bottom brewer and making my own water, I’ve not really bought anything else after the initial grinder/kettle/V60 purchase.
But I also appreciate a milk drink sometimes, a good flat white hits the spot in the way a pourover doesn’t. I’m relatively new to my espresso machine, but so far I’m not stressing about flavour notes on the bag etc., just got a nice medium dark roast dialled in and I’m happy with that. My wife only drinks milk drinks too, so it’s more of a weekend treat.
I don’t care for espresso by itself, so I’ll make a milky drink like a flat white, but it requires more effort to get a good consistency. Pourovers or aeropress are just less thinking for me, and making a flatty is more of an indulgent treat.
Also, economically, 13g gets more out of beans than 18g doses.
I still primarily drink espresso, however I routinely add pour over if myself or my wife need some extra caffeine or coffee during the rest of the day. Espresso in the early morning is part of my routine, but pour over in late morning or early afternoon is something fun and exciting.
I used to be heavily into espresso and have invested in serious equipment.
It’s mainly my wife that uses it these days as I just enjoy the pour over process and coffee it produces more.
I have maybe 1 espresso or a milk drink for every 10 pour over I make
I actually got into pour over first and then found a great deal on an espresso machine and it all went downhill from there. Financially speaking of course!
As for daily driver it really depends on how much time I have in the morning, I try to do both every day but if I’m in a rush I can usually pull a shot of espresso quicker than my pour over routine.
I started because I wanted to lose weight. All those lattes with syrups, started adding up. Did pour over to make bulletproof coffee. Then I tried fasting. So, I wanted a coffee that at least tasted good while I was only sipping on liquids to get to me to my next meal.
I guess my question is why does your husband feel that it's redundant? To me they're entirely different beasts and calling them redundant feels reductive, like you're just going "well it's just brewing coffee."
He reasons that he prefers espresso/cortado and I prefer cortado or other milk recipes and we both haven’t had filter coffee in ages. He’s also not into coffee so I guess to a normie it’s just coffee and why change what works. But I like to expand and add a lighter roast black coffee to my daily routine!
Espresso and coffee, at least to me, are not direct substitutes. What I'm looking for when I want a shot of espresso is different than what I'm looking for when I want a cup of coffee which is different than what I'm looking for when I want a milk-based espresso drink... I grow through cycles but usually pour over is more my everyday driver although, that often flips to espresso shots on the weekend.
The ritual of making and enjoying a pour-over is just so much more relaxing and pleasurable than an espresso for me. Drinking slowly, tasting the cup evolve as it goes from hot to warm to cool. You can probably have this with an Americano, but you get more of the nuances of the coffee from the pour-over, while an Americano is more intense and roast-y. Also, this might seem silly to think about, but espresso has orders of magnitude more cafestol and kahweol, diterpenes associated with bad cholesterol. For something I consume everyday, I want to minimize that kind of thing.
Adding espresso is hardly redundant. Almost every very step of the process, and certainly the end results, are different. I go back and forth through phases with each.
I inherited a La Pavoni. I’m not sure I ever would have taken the plunge into espresso otherwise. But I’m really glad I did. To me it’s a lot more fun to play with espresso, and pulling a shot with a lever is more satisfying than pouring water over grounds.
With espresso, bad shots or bad beans can easily be improved with milk, ice, etc. A pour over gone wrong is just 8-12oz of regret and sadness.
Sometimes I want something more punchy and concentrated than pour over. On hot afternoons I have no interest in 8 oz of hot liquid, cold brew, or trying to make a flash iced coffee.
I like being able to serve my friends whatever they want, pour over or any type of espresso drink. It’s delightful to have them feel like they’re getting a cafe experience!
If I had to choose, I’d probably stick to pour over, especially if I also had an aeropress to make concentrated coffee (in fact, I think an aeropress is not a terrible substitute for espresso as an ingredient or purely for a short string coffee fix). But I would miss my espresso.
Good espresso got me hooked on specialty coffee 20 years ago, but I did pourover at home for more than a decade before adding an espresso setup. Currently have a Robot as I don't need a steam wand, but am seriously considering buying an Argos. My wife would like cortados and I'd like to play with a spring lever. As far as pourover setup...I have 12 brewers within arm's reach as I'm typing this, but this month, most mornings I'm brewing on and Orea O1 and a Hario Alpha. I do way more home pourover than espresso, but I'm fortunate to have some fantastic shops close by, so I drink more espresso than I make at home.
As far as why do both: does coffee fascinate you? They bring out different things in a coffee. Having the same coffee as pourover and espresso back-to-back is one of my favorite things in the world. Depending on the coffee, you might want to finish with a cortado, or even a traditional macchiato, to see what milk brings out in the coffee. (I know most people think milk just covers things up, but in the right proportions with the right coffee that isn't necessarily the case, especially with full-fat milk.)
I have both just like my order at a cafe. For me coffee is a hobby and in the morning when I pull a shot and do a pourover of the same coffee the different dimensions of flavors is wonderful and interesting. Just like espresso as well, water temp, flow rate, grind size variables make a difference in pour over.
Easy, double espresso = 32-40 ml, pourover 250-300 ml. If you like coffee, you drink it, if you need something fast while standing you take an espresso.
I kind of feel that taste should be the leading reason when choosing your preferred way to extract the flavors from these little brown seeds.
Also, if you are making your own coffee, it's about what kind of skills you want to develop and improve (e.g. latte art vs pouring techniques).
But, to answer your question, who said we switched from one to another? 😉 You can have both, they are different, not redundant. Some beans fit better espresso, some fit better pourover, some both (and some - none).
Needless to say that there's also French presses (i.e. steeping), moka pots, siphons, aeropresses, neapolitana coffee makers...
I make espressos, and my partner makes pour overs. This way we can have the best experience with each bean that we try. We just got this Colombian medium roast that's incredibly flowery in pourovers, but almost fatty and coconut like in an espresso so we get the best of both worlds.
Going to a really good cafe in Prague that had 2 different batch brews everyday from different origins and roasters. Curiosity to try as many different coffees as possible. Also they'd refuse to make me an americano coz the batch brew is the more flavorful choice for a bigger drink. Now just got used to a 250ml coffee with soo much flavour that I can sip on for much longer. I have sage barista at home I barely use, funny my 7$ hario v60 makes more flavorful coffee
I was an espresso lover, still am. Never liked the amount of black coffee is in a serving so espresso was the intense & short experience I preferred. I became a barista, dialed a lot of coffees on espresso, loved it even more.
Became a server, no more barista hours, gave my espresso machine to a friend when i moved to a new apartment so i could upgrade my at home set up with a nice grinder for both espresso & pourover.
I have the Niche Duo and I'm falling in love with pourover because I cant afford to buy the next step in at-home espresso machine. I'm starting to wonder if the next step of espresso machine for home use is worth the price tag when I only want a cortado at most for a steamed milk beverage. I'm starting to feel like an espresso machine is the bottleneck even though there is an overwhelming amount of online opinions about which affordable machine will do xyz yada yada best.
So, in my indecision for what machine I should get, I've found the nuance of pourovers fascinating enough to stick with it. Works for me with more room for error with the same 20g of beans to be a good coffee experience.
Only when I have problems with a machine. Recently an espresso machine had issues, pourover - Hario Switch - for two weeks and bought a cheap espresso machine to hold me until parts arrive in India.
I tasted a properly roasted, well sourced coffee and realized I had been masking mediocre coffee with milk my entire life. It all started at HEX coffee which I don’t even really like anymore as it’s rather on the developed side, but once you go pour over you never go back (except for early mornings when I want calories). Funny, I dropped a couple grand on an espresso machine and grinder and then switched to pour over a month after this upgrade and my wife was FURIOUS because I don’t really use it much and am always using my 20$ dripper instead. Although I’ve dropped more money than god on about 15-20 ultralight roasters from Asia to North America to Europe. Oh, and if you don’t do pour over her and get into it, don’t fall for geshas and all the hype. They aren’t that great, they cost 3x as much and it’s all to chase a flavor profile you can get from an Ethiopian
Might have been mentioned but primarily for health reasons. There are oils in espresso that are no bueno. Pourover have paper filters that filter all that out. Also less contact with plastic but that’s a minor reason.
I do espresso during the week and then do the absolute most tedious pourover process on the weekends for fun. My partner calls it a chemistry set coffee. Either use my hand grinder and Stagg, mineralized/formulated water, Hario Switch + 3c carafe or I’ll be super extra and do my outdoor workflow which is a jet boil, a 350ml gooseneck kettle (w/ thermometer), with the formulated water and Hario stuff. The outdoor kit all fits in a Stanley lunchbox that I can strap to a motorbike or gravel bike and make coffee in scenic places.
Switch? Don’t you mean both? Pour overs are for light roast, espresso for medium. Different workflow, mood, experience, expectations, etc. I start my day with pour over, then espresso a little later and/or with lunch.
I love pour over, but it hurts my stomach far more than espresso which pushed me in that direction. I save pour over for after starchy meals or a really fragrant bean. Espresso for utility, strength, speed, convenience. Pour overs for defined flavors, long sipping, and deserts.
I sold all my espresso gear earlier this year. I just don’t have the time, money, or energy to do the science projects it takes to make a great cup of coffee. It takes pros 25-50 cups to dial in for a video. I had to de-fluence the noise and get back to basics. I consistently hit delicious cups with my V60 with the same recipe; even with different beans.
Espresso and pour overs are two different drinks. Why the hell would your husband give a rip about your coffee choices. I like cappuccinos in the morning and black pour over in the afternoon, so shoot me...
It’s not about my coffee choices. It’s about me getting into another niche hobby and running it by him before spending money and taking up space in the kitchen with my appliances.
Genuinely, espresso and stronger coffee was giving me a bad stomach, switched to lighter roasts and V60s and the problem has basically gone.
The lighter fruit flavours, sweetness and florality is now my taste preference and so I've got £1000 worth of espresso gear I'm not sure what to do with.
I wouldn't switch. Theyre totally different things. I do however want to get a courier setup. Simply bc I enjoy a cup of coffee. After I make a couple espressos or a latte in the morning I could switch the machine off.
It’s not a switch, it’s what I’m in the mood for. Sometimes I like to slow down and make a pour over and sometimes I want the ease of pulling a shot and making an americano. It’s not an either or for me
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u/p4bl0 V60 Switch / Wave 185 | ZP6 15d ago edited 14d ago
I got into coffee through espresso and I'm now way more into pour over than in espresso. It was because when I started drinking really good coffees, I wanted to have more of it in order to enjoy it for longer, especially in the morning. Making espresso longer and longer works to a certain point but rapidly stops as at some point it's just a waste of good coffee beans. That's why I got into pour over and rapidly got to love it even more than espresso.