title_body: Coffee brewed without filter taste less bitter and sour?
upvoted_answer: I'm not exactly sure if this is accurate, but I think it has to do with flavor extraction. 
  
  When you brew with a filter, the water is going to fall through the grounds too fast to actually develop good flavor. Sure, you'll get coffee, but you're only giving the water enough time to take the more bitter tastes with it. I have this same problem with my coffee.
  
  When you brew directly into water, all of the water is in contact with all of the grounds for a considerably longer amount of time. The water will extract the bitter tastes AND the more flavorful aspects of the grounds, which is why you thought this tasted better. It wasn't just bitter, it was bitter and flavorful, and that's coffee.
  
  You're not doing anything wrong with the filtered methods, it's simply a matter of opinion among coffee tasters. Some people enjoy the convenience of fast, filtered, and bitter coffee because it's what they know as coffee. The reason the Turkish method isn't suggested is because, the way you describe it, it sounds like the grounds stay inside the coffee, and many people loathe having to deal with that--even though it produces much better coffee.
  
  So no, you're not doing anything wrong; however, the reason you're finding flavor differences is that the extraction of flavors is far different between the two methods!