My experience has been that if you are pouring every day and your technique is really good, than a pourover will have slightly more complex flavors. But an Aeropress will be almost just as good and be much more consistent and have a much flatter learning curve. I always recommend an Aeropress to people getting into nice coffee. A pourover is much more theatrical and looks more impressive, though :/

You don't really... Espresso makes highly concentrated brewed coffee that people consider to be closer to espresso.

The 'debate' is that any coffee pulled under pressure is technically espresso - but (real, read: not home machines) pull espresso shots at ~9 bar. Aeropress generates about 1.5 - 2 bars of pressure, and thus is... something between coffee and espresso. Most people have taken to calling it "Espresso style coffee" which is like calling Tofurky meat style tofu. WAT?

Anyway, most people (but not me) dilute their Aeropress coffee in water to make a Americano-style drink, so its not really comparable at this point to a true pour-over anyway.

All that said, I think aeropress makes quite good coffee - but its not a replacement for a pourover, and there's a lot more batch variation due to the lack of control in an aeropress.

Hope this helps!

There's a subtle difference in taste. It's also much easier to make with the Aeropress. I really get very consistent results with it, whereas pour-over can be more difficult to get the timing right.

On the other hand, it's more fun to make a pourover. Aeropress feels like a toy in comparison. Feels like not much skill is involved.

Aeropress is something between filter/pourover and french press. I think it produces better tasting coffee than both of these methods most of the time.

Also consider that the Aeropress is very, very easy to clean.

Friends more familiar with making their own espresso seem to love the Aeropress. Friends familiar with pour over seem to moonlight with Aeropress now and then.