What is the difference in methods between a pour over and a drip coffee?

Question

My husband likes pour overs more than a drip coffee and i am wondering what are the differences in flavor profile and the differences in methods of how they are made.

Could one potentially taste the differences if they were blindfolded?

Answer 1

I have tried all sorts of different brewing methods and here are the differences I’ve noticed.

With pour over, you are in control/responsible for a lot of variables, from the water temperature, blooming, grind size (if you’re grinding your own beans), and pouring flow.

With drip method using a traditional method, you get more consistency but less variables to play with.

I noticed a difference in richness/flavour extracted with pour over (granted you follow typical methods of blooming and slowish pour rate).

Taste is subjective so I can’t speak to what is “better”, but there should be a difference in taste given the method.

Answer 2

I assume that by "drip coffee" we mean using a machine to heat and drip the water through coffee grinds and filter, where "pour over" means doing the same thing by hand. (In some usage, "drip coffee" is the general case that includes both automated and manual brewing.)

A drip machine is programmed to bring the water to a consistent temperature and drip it through a controlled spray pattern with consistent blooming and brewing timing. (Other brewing variables like the grind size and the coffee:water ratio are still left to you.)

Thus when doing manual pour over, you could match the temperature, spray pattern, and timing of the drip machine, and in that way get indistinguishable results.

So the differences for pour over are:

• You can choose to match or vary those brewing parameters. Have fun with blind tastings!
  You could even respond in real time by "feel" to how the grinds look and smell. "Brewing artistry" sounds like fun although I'm not confident it'll produce tastier results.
• You probably won't be as consistent as the drip machine. (Do you measure the water temperature and the pouring time?)
  This could normally be a feature or a bug, depending on your perspective. It's a bug when you're doing experiments with other variables like grind size.
• A pour over cone is easy to clean while a drip machine will accumulate mold, germs, and hard water deposits in unreachable places. That will affect the taste, and not for the better.