If you’re using an espresso coffee machine, you need a coffee tamper. You’ll know this, but what you might not know is literally how much impact the best coffee tampers can have on the quality of espresso coffee you’ll produce at home.
If you weren’t aware, tamping is what you need to do with the coffee in the basket before inserting it into your espresso machine.
You apply pressure to the ground coffee beans in the basket, in the portafilter, to compress it prior to inserting the portafilter into the group and pulling the shot.
Portafilter just suggests filter holder, by the way – and if you’re asking “well why don’t you refer to it as a filter holder?” the address to that is that calling it a portafilter brews me feel more clever ;-).
This tamping is done with a tamper, funnily enough ;-), a small hand-held equipment with a round flat surface that matches the size of your portafilter, and a deal with (usually, although there are flat, handle-free tampers too) often made of wood, for you to grip in order to tamp.
Tamping is a key part of the espresso-making technique, and the “tampers” with which many domestic espresso coffee machines are shipped are a joke! Well, they’re not tampers at all.
If you’re buying an entry-level espresso machine, especially if it’s in the £100-£200 price range, it won’t come with a tamper, even though the marketing blurb will probably say that it does.
What these kinds of espresso coffee machines usually come with, is a plastic thing with a scoop at one end and a flat circular plastic thing at the other end, which is supposed to be a tamper.
These devices, in my modest opinion, belong in the same category as chocolate tea pots & bikes for fish: utterly useless.
Although speaking of bikes for fish, have you ever seen a Gurnard?
Really strange looking sea-dwelling critter which is allegedly a fish, even though I’ve often wondered if they’re in reality lobsters in disguise, and which I suspect are possibly capable of bike riding.
They have wings, too, wings I tell you! Isn’t nature amazing?
Anyway, getting back on subject: If you’re utilizing something like this (a plastic scoop tamper I mean, not a bike-riding fish) you’ll rather likely find that utilizing a proper tamper will up your espresso game.
There are two main reasons for this:
Extent Tamping. If you don’t get a level surface when you tamp, you’re more likely to suffer from channeling, where the water finds paths of lesser resistance in the coffee, leading to uneven extraction, and poor tasting espresso.
What you’ll find is that you just can’t get a proper grip on these plastic scoop tamper things, which doesn’t make them at all conducive to a degree tamp.
Consistent tamping pressure. There are several variables to espresso-making, among which is tamping pressure. If you don’t tamp at a fairly consistent pressure from one shot to the next, your shot consistency is likely to be “all over the shop”.
Among the main secrets to fantastic espresso is consistency. You need to do the same thing each time, and when you’re changing things in order to enhance the shot quality, you only want to change one thing at a time.
If you’re constantly changing tamping pressure (because you’re using a daft plastic scoopy tamper thing, or a fish, which would probably work just as well) you’ll never fully value the impact of the changes you’re creating.
For example, you might make the grind slightly finer because your shot is flowing too quickly, nevertheless then you tamp with less pressure than you did before, and not much changes with the flow rate.
To be fair, there is a knack to tamping even with proper tampers, switching to a decent tamper isn’t going to completely resolve tamping inconsistency, however it’ll indeed help in my simple opinion.
Not only will it help, but I believe that improving your tamper and therefore your tamping, is one of the low-hanging fruit where espresso making is anxious.
By low-hanging fruit, I’m talking about the perfect return with the least amount of investment.
Many people get something known as upgradeitis quite early on in the home barista journey and spend large amounts of money on seemingly more important bits of kit, namely on upgrading their espresso machine.
If only they knew that there are in fact numerous key areas to improve, which can be improved with much less effort & investment than buying a more expensive espresso coffee machine.
One of which is the modest and inexpensive action of improving their tamper and some of the others are equally as easy and similar in terms of cost!
So I’m going introduce you to what I believe to be some of the perfect coffee tampers now – but once you’ve chosen the perfect tamper for you & for your espresso machine, stick around so I can talk you through some of the others.
The Perfect Coffee Tampers
I’m going to split this into various tamper sizes because unfortunately, this isn’t a one size fits all thing. You need a tamper that fits your portafilter, and different espresso coffee machines have different portafilter sizes.
So, below, you’ll find tampers categorized by the espresso coffee machines they’ll fit. If your machine isn’t listed, very check the size of your portafilter, and you’ll then see which tampers you need to be looking at.
Please note, I’m putting each espresso coffee machine into the appropriate category based on what I believe the tamper size to be.
I’d advise you measure the size of your portafilter, and/or the useless tamper part of your plastic scoop, just in case I’m acting on incorrect or out-of-date data
If you think I’ve got any of the machines below, in the wrong category, please do let me understand, ta.
The Perfect 49mm Tampers
Compatible with:
Swan Retro Pump Espresso Machine
Amazon Basics Espresso coffee Machine (all variants)
La Pavoni Europiccola (Pre-millennium only. For models from 2000 onwards you’ll need 51mm)
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
There’s not a wonderful deal to be said about this tamper truly – it’s extremely much a tried and tested tamper combination this, a thick stainless steel flat base with a wooden deal with. There are loads of really similar looking tampers.
I suspect most them are, erm… “emulations” of the popular (and pricier) Motta tampers. Motta being a popular brand, needless to say there are a number of spookily similar tampers available online, often really inexpensive as is the case with this one.
The handle is Rosewood, the metal part is stainless steel, and it weighs 280g.
This is apparently a calibrated tamper. Calibrated to what, I can’t tell you – as the blurb doesn’t give this away – however I suspect that this is one of the calibrated tampers which isn’t actually calibrated.
Actually, if you press it until it stops, there’s a stiff spring which is designed to help your temp to be more consistent, but whether we can extremely call this calibrated – uncertain, nevertheless they do.
If you’re looking for one that clicks at the calibrated pressure so you learn exactly when you’ve hit that pressure, this isn’t that.
I’m not sure if there are any fully calibrated tampers like this at 49mm, however if I’m wrong and there are, let me understand and I’ll include it here.
What else can I tell you about this tamper? It has a stainless steel base, and it weighs 320g, so rather heavy weight.
By the way, reading through the Amazon reviews for this and other tampers, I’m finding myself getting rather annoyed at the noun “tamper” being used as a verb. What’s wrong with me? I should need more coffee, or less.
But, I’ll take a deep breath, and really calmly state that “tamper” is the noun, the thing that you tamp with.
The action of tamping is a verb – you tamp coffee, you don’t tamper coffee – in the same way that you work with a shaver to shave a beard, however you don’t shaver a beard, or maybe you do? ;-).
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My Observations
This is another rosewood handle and stainless steel base pair, but a mildly different shape than usual, both the base and the deal with. I’ve got a tamper extremely similar to this, and I like the look and feel of it.
I understand, I’m a bit sad – however the way the base flares out, vs the flatter ones, steeps it quite comfortable when you’re pushing down with your thumb on one side and the knuckle of your forefinger on the other, if that steeps sense?
The Perfect 51mm Tampers
Compatible with:
DeLonghi Dedica EC680 & EC685
SMEG ECF01
La Pavoni Europiccola (Milennium models – 2000 and onwards)
Breville One-Touch CoffeeHouse
De’Longhi ECP35.31
Swan Scandi Style Espresso Machine
DeLonghi ECC221.B
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
I rather like the look of this tamper from DeLonghi, and I have got one somewhere but I can’t find where I’ve put it…
Anyway, it’s the basic wooden deal with and stainless steel base configuration, and it’s 50mm to fit the DeLonghi (and others) portafilters.
It’ll fit several of the other machines which have a 51mm portafilter, including the Smeg espresso coffee machine as listed above, which appears really – VERY… similar in lots of ways to the much cheaper DeLonghi Dedica espresso machine only with a more pricey looking shell…
Reminds me of the bloke I’ve seen driving around in what appears to be a Bentley, which is literally a Chrysler. It’s not among the body kits either, just a badge and alloys I think, haha, I think he’s done it tongue in cheek to be fair.
Anyway, this 51mm tamper from DeLonghi is actually the perfect selling tamper on Amazon UK at the time of writing.
I can’t find the one I bought for the DeLonghi Dedica espresso machine I reviewed a while ago, nevertheless I can remember that I was quite impressed with the tamper in terms of look and feel.
For more on the Dedica, see:
DeLonghi Dedica Review
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
This one is has a similar shaped deal with to the Edesia tamper above, but a mildly more fundamental shaped base – and comes with a tamper mat, for the tamper to sit in.
The blurb states this is to protect the base from the kitchen worktop, but come on, it’s stainless steel!
I reckon the worktop probably needs protecting from it, not the other way around ;-), nevertheless in any case, has a mat to put it in. It apparently weighs 340g, so rather heavy weight.
Just keep in mind if you’re buying this one that they likewise sell a 58mm one, so make sure you don’t accidentally select that one.
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My Observations
I really like the look of these tampers – again I quite like the flared shape of the top of the base, the bit where you’ll rest your thumb and forefinger.
These are height adjustable which just implies that you can remove the silver ring to make the handle slightly shorter. It weighs 354g, and it seems like quite the majority of tamper for the money.
The Perfect 53mm Tampers
Compatible with Sage espresso machines with 54mm portafilters:
Sage Duo Temp Pro
Sage Bambino
Sage Bambino Plus
Sage Barista Express
Sage Barista Pro
Sage Barista Touch
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
As I mentioned when talking about the smaller version of this tamper above, this is a walnut-handled tamper, with a deal with shape that I find rather comfortable.
Also the way the top of the stainless steel base flares out, too, brews this design of tamper rather comfortable on your thumb and forefinger or the knuckle of your forefinger depending on your tamping style.
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My Observations
Another calibrated tamper, which possibly isn’t simply calibrated as such, but has a stiff spring which is designed to help your tamping to be more consistent.
I’m not having a go at these tampers, by the way – the properly calibrated ones which click when they hit the weight they’re calibrated to, are a lot more expensive.
I’m literally not rather sure they ought to be being sold as calibrated if they’re really not.
They do seem to do the job rather even though, of helping with more consistent tamping.
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
This is an adjustable tamper that allows you to choose a tamping pressure of between 15 – 21Kg.
I wouldn’t personally want to tamp to over 15Kg, but some do, there are some pro baristas out there who prefer to tamp at a higher pressure.
With this Aluminium tamper, you can play around with it and see which pressure seems to work best – if you can’t tell any difference, I’d say save your wrists and put it on the lowest pressure setting.
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
Quite a nice looking shaped tamper, and rather heavyweight at 260g.
The brand name Omgogo sounds like some long-extinct colourful and interesting looking feathered yet flightless bird.
The firm who sell this are spoken about as Ombobo, which makes me giggle, due to the reality that the G and B are, obviously, above each other on the keyboard, and I can’t help however think that either the brand name or the company name is a typo! ;-).
The Perfect 57mm Tampers
Compatible with:
Lelit Anna
Lelit Anita
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
Not a great deal to say about this literally, a fairly standard looking tamper with a wooden deal with and stainless steel base. I’m uncertain if the weight is correct, it says 399g which would make it particularly heavy weight!
Really happy to see from the product details that the capacity is 1ml…?? 😉
You find out, part of my job – back when I had one and I couldn’t just sit around and write about coffee all day – was writing product descriptions. I’m sure I would have made the odd typo, however sometimes I do scratch my head at the kind of stuff I read in product descriptions.
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
This is a Lelit tamper, Aluminium deal with with stainless steel base, and really specifically 57.35mm, to perfectly fit the Lelit 57mm baskets for the Lelit Anna & Lelit Kate.
It’s apparently only 20g of being half a Kilo, flipping Nora! That’s what you call a heavyweight tamper.
I’m uncertain it’s correct, the majority of of the weight will be in the base with it being an Aluminium deal with, as Alu is lightweight. So if you buy one, please weight it and let me discover. Ta 🙂
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
Another Lelit tamper, and this one is all stainless steel, yet at 250g apparently lighter than the one above which has an Aluminium handle, which amplifies my suspicions that this tamper does not have an auto shut off… 😉
The Perfect 58mm Tampers
Compatible with many other espresso coffee machines, including:
Gaggia Classic
Rancilio Silvia
Rancilio Silvia Pro
Sage Dual Boiler
Nuova Simonelli Oscar, Oscar II, Musica
All other Lelit Machines other than Anna & Anita
All Profitec espresso machines
All ECM espresso machines
All Rocket espresso coffee machines
All Bezzera espresso machines
All La Marzocco espresso coffee machines
All Expobar espresso coffee machines
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
I have to say, I do like the unusual look of this tamper from Espresso coffee Gear.
Yes, I’m sad, we’ve already ascertained that – nevertheless there’s quite a big difference between this tamper and the majority of others, which is that the rosewood deal with flares out.
So this is what your finger and thumb will primarily come into contact with when tamping, instead of the metal base, which I hazard a guess would be quite a nice comfortable tamp.
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
These tampers from Motta are really much what I’d class as a basic tamper.
They’re the really typical tamper shape, with a wooden handle & a stainless steel base. As you’ll see shortly, Motta do explore the slightly unusual when it comes to tamper shapes.
This one, but, is about as usual as you can get for a tamper.
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
Now then, this is one of a few Motta tampers you’re bound to find here, given that Motta are one of the leading brands of barista accessories, however this one has a totally different handle shape than a lot of tampers I’ve seen.
The deal with, as you can see, is ball-shaped. Why they’ve mentioned as it “bubble shaped” I’m uncertain, the first thing that springs to my mind when I think of a solid round object is a ball, not a bubble.
Maybe Motta are anxious that if they call it a “Ball Tamper” rather than a “Bubble Tamper”, some members of the public will take this basically, misunderstanding what it is you’re supposed to be squishing with this thing, which is, of course, ground coffee beans.
Anyway, it looks cool, and given that I am already starting to build up a bit of a tamper collection, I might just have to get myself one of these.
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
This is a flat push tamper, named so due to the truth that of the fact that it’s flat, and you push it ;-).
It’s basically a palm tamper, so instead of having a tamper which requires you to grip a deal with and press down, you can push down with the palm of your hand, or I suppose any part of your anatomy giving you’re careful to keep it extent.
Your elbow, maybe – or perhaps even your chin if you’re that way inclined, although I think many people would probably opt to work with the palm of their hand.
Check Price - Amazon UK
My Observations
This is the 58mm version of the Diguo Elegance tamper I explained earlier, with its adjustable height handle which is done by adding or removing the metal washer. Quite a nice looking tamper I think, and looks good for the money.
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
Another tamper from the well known coffee gear brand Motta, but this one has a mildly different shaped handle, maybe one to try if you haven’t got on with more basic deal with shapes.
This is another wonderful deal from Shop Coffee, as this is a in truth well known brand, who produce some decent stuff, and this tamper is cheaper than some of the other non-branded (or branded with unknown brand names) tampers.
EDO Barista Tamper Baby Pink – 58mm
Check Price - Shop Coffee
My Observations
Another pro 58mm tamper from shop coffee, and I’m including this one in particular due to the fact that, well, you don’t see numerous baby pink coffee tampers!
Having said that, in addition to the colour, it looks like a decent tamper too, with Aluminium handle and stainless steel flat 58mm base, and it’s available in a range of other colours if you’re not a big fan of baby pink. Click here to see the other colours.
OK so that’s my advice on tampers, and as you can see there are loads & loads to choose from – and actually, you can’t go wrong, as long as you’re selecting the right tamper for your portafilter.
Well, I suppose you can buy a tamper that you’re not all that blown away by, in terms of comfort. For example, you might find that the sort of deal with doesn’t rather suit you.
Maybe you have massive sausage fingers and need a tamper handle the size of a rolling pin, or maybe you have slightly more dainty hands?
We’re all different, and thankfully there are lots of different kinds of tampers to choose from, and they’re among the a lot of economical part of the essential home barista kit, so if you do need to replace your tamper further down the line, it’s not a huge deal.
If you’re looking for bigger jumps in your home espresso game, even though, once you’ve got yourself a better tamper, the next thing I’d consider is the coffee mill situation.
While tamping is important, grinding is arguably THE key to espresso coffee quality, second only to the coffee itself I’d say.
If you’re currently using pre-ground coffee, freshly grinding your own coffee beans will be a step in the right direction.
If you’re already grinding your own, but you’re using a coffee grinder that belongs in the same chocolate teapot category as the plastic scoop tamper, improving your coffee mill is often the perfect way to improve results.
For more on this see:
Perfect Burr Coffee Grinders
As I’ve just explained, another surprisingly underrated (and obvious, you’d think, but it seems not) way to improve your espresso coffee quality is to improve on the quality of the coffee you’re using.
It’s amazing in fact how several people don’t get this. If you put rubbish in, you’ll get rubbish out.
You can have the best coffee mill and the best coffee makeking device but unless you’re utilizing ideal coffee, you won’t get excellent espresso coffee.
If you didn’t discover, as well as coffeeblog, I run The Coffeeworks, supplying incredible quality coffee beans, in my humble and OK, biased, opinion.
Yes, I’m going to say my coffee is incredible, however if you knew more about the method that goes into choosing these coffees, you’d possibly better discover where I’m coming from when I say this.
The Coffeeworks began as a project involving coffee bloggers (coffee blog readers – so that now includes you), in which I ran a series of polls to discover what readers were looking for.
Many this included what flavour profiles people were looking for, as I didn’t want to only end up with a range of coffees that I enjoy, I need customers to love them too.
However all of the major decisions were brewed with reader’s opinions in mind, including seemingly unimportant decisions like which pouches to go for, and delivery options.
And with all of the coffees including the new increased range, I spent the majority of time tasting lots of different coffees via various brewing methods, as well as cupping. I learn, it’s a tough job, however someone has to do it ;-).
So when I say this is great coffee, I’m not just saying that as a business person who wants you to buy his products.
If you’ve not tried my coffee before, below is a discount code that offers you a quarter off any of my coffee beans:
Utilize discount code CBNC25 for 25% off your first order at Coffeeworks
And once you’ve used the code above, by the way, as a returning customer (which, thankfully the majority of customers are, as this in reality is great coffee!) use the discount code: coffeebotherers for 10% off all of your future orders.
Another very often overlooked yet hugely important part of espresso-making, is distribution.
I’m not going to properly get into the discussion of distribution here, because it’s a topic for another completely separate post, but I’ll briefly introduce you to distribution just in case it’s something you’ve not yet come across.
Distribution indicates exactly what it sounds like it indicates, the even distribution of the coffee in the basket. There are obviously masses of particles of ground coffee beans in a portafilter basket, in truth I’ve counted them and there are approximately… haha, you didn’t fall for that did you? ;-).
I’ve not counted them… Though, I did count how lots of coffee beans there are in the basic espresso coffee basket, and in an 18g dose there’s usually approximately 120-150 coffee beans, depending on the varietal, roast profile and so on.
There’s some entirely useless info for you. You’re welcome :-).
Anyway, these particles can gather in clumps, and this is particularly true with certain grinders, even more so with grinders towards the entry level. Distributing the coffee essentially suggests to break up the clumps and more equally distributing the ground coffee.
When you see baristas performing various strange-looking rituals, such as knocking the portafilter with the tamper, or their hand, or doing the L for loser sign and rotating their thumb and forefinger over the coffee like some deranged individual trying to mock the coffee he or she has just dosed into their portafilter… these are all manual distribution methods.
The best distribution recipe in my humble opinion, and one of the the majority of popular over the past few years, is known as the WDT, or the Weiss Distribution Technique.
This started out as a technique involving a pointy implement, like a needle, and stirring up the grounds in the basket, in concentric circles.
Loads of people have developed the recipe and made it their own, and a lot of people these days use some form of multi-pronged pointy implement, and these are mainly known as “WDT tools”.
There are likewise leveler tools, which I believe started out with the OCD leveler, and now there are lots of similar devices to this, but I think it’s important to point out that these forms of tools don’t quite do the same as WDT.
These tools work on the surface only, and they do nothing with distribution, although they’re often sold as “distribution tools” or “coffee distributors”, they extent the surface, so they’re levelers.
If you want to use a leveler, no problem – but I’d utilize one as well as a WDT tool, not instead of, as they do a different job.
Remember, you could likewise brush your hair with your toothbrush, but you probably wouldn’t? Each to their own! ;-).
Some of the Perfect WDT Tools
I’m only including a few WDT tools here, as there are so a lot of hitting the market at the moment, and a number of of them are really similar. Watch this space, as I’ll create a separate review post for WDT tools in the future and link to it from here.
Check Price - Etsy
My Observations
I make no apologies for the fact that I’m obsessed with coffee ;-), I’m sure you’d expect nothing else from someone who in truth steeps his living from writing & talking about it all day! So, as you can probably imagine, I have numerous coffee tools & accessories, including WDT tools.
There are a couple of ways I think you can go with WDT – single tool or two tools.
There’s the deeper part of the WDT process which means distributing all the way down to the very bottom of the basket, and then there’s what’s called surface raking, where you handle the surface specifically. So you can work with one specific device for each, or one device for both.
Some people believe that you must work with a slightly thicker pronged WDT device (around 0.4mm generally) for the deeper WDT, but then for the surface, a thinner device ought to be used, around 0.2-0.25mm.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know whether using one slightly thicker device for the deeper WDT and then a thinner pronged equipment for the surface steeps any difference to likelihood of channeling (which is the main thing we’re trying to combat with WDT).
It could, in theory, and I know some folk think that it does make a difference – I’ve not actually been able to tell if it does or not, and I’ve not done enough specific research study into this as yet to tell you whether using two tools is better than one.
What I do believe but is that any WDT is better than none, for reducing the chances of channeling, and that while a two tooled approach might not really be any better than one, I don’t believe it can do any harm.
In theory you could work with a thinner pronged device for both, nevertheless I find the thinner needles are a little bit too flimsy for deeper WDT, they end up bending, and when they do this I think you potentially end up messing up the higher areas with the bending prongs while distributing the deeper areas. I may be wrong.
You could likewise use one equipment for the deeper WDT, and then an OCD type leveler for the surface.
Personally, I either utilize the one tooled WDT approach, or the two tooled approach, depending on where I am and how much time I have – nevertheless my favourite tool for both the two tooled and the one tooled approach is this one.
There are various other similar tools with similar needle size, nevertheless this one seems nice and sturdy, it comes with a stand which I find handy, you can change the needle setup (if you want to) and the number of needles/pins used.
Re the stand, the version above comes with a stand, nevertheless if you prefer you can buy the version which sticks onto the side of your espresso coffee machine:
Check Price - Etsy
Check Price - Etsy
My Observations
This is the WDT device I usually use in conjunction with the above if I’m utilizing a two-tooled approach.
I’ve tried other thinner tools, including one that I paid about fifty quid for, and this is my favourite among the ones I’ve tried.
It’s sturdy, none of the needles have fallen out (unlike with the fifty quid one!), and it has a magnetic hanging loop which allows me to stick it on the side of my Sage dual boiler, which is really handy.
This includes custom engraving (the imagery above is just an example) which brews this a nice gift idea for coffee enthusiasts, and for more of these see:
Perfect Gift Ideas for Coffee Lovers
The Best Coffee Tampers – Conclusion
I know, I’ve covered quite a little bit more than purely coffee tampers in this article – but I’ve done this simply because many people find out they need a proper tamper to enhance their espresso coffee, but don’t realize that there other very humble ways that you can also up your espresso game.
Creating among the improvements above, using better coffee, improving your grinder or using a better tamper will help you to enhance your impacts, but creating all of these changes will produce exponential effects, leading you on the path to espresso heaven!
It’s fair to say that improving your espresso coffee machine is another component to this, nevertheless I’m holding back on that advice in the article just due to the reality that I think most people who’re looking for the best coffee tamper, will be people who’ve basically simply bought an espresso machine.
To a certain degree, regardless of what your espresso machine is, you could always upgrade it, and becoming a home barista often comes with the pandemic condition called upgradeitis.
So rather than to annoy the heck out of you by suggesting that even though you may have literally bought an espresso coffee machine, you need to upgrade it already.
What I’d recommend, is that you focus the upgradeitis on the areas of greatest return for the smallest investment, which would be the coffee, the grinder & the tamper.
If you are already at the point of upgrading your espresso coffee machine, although, see:
Perfect Home Barista Espresso Machines
Before I sign off, just to handle a few commonly asked questions:
How hard ought to you tamp coffee?
You’ll have probably heard the “30 pounds of pressure” thing – and this, in my humble opinion, is about as realistic as Dragons, Unicorns & the “£350 million a week to the NHS” bus ad.
I’m sure it came with good intentions, but I literally don’t think it’s especially advantageous – or true.
You can buy a calibrated tamper if you like, which will click when you’ve hit the pre-set pressure, which in some cases is 30 pounds, or with the adjustable pressure tamper above you can select from a couple of different pressures. Otherwise, even though, I’d basically ignore any reference to pounds or KG of pressure, and just push the tamper until you feel the coffee stops moving.
The a lot of important things about tamping, are a extent surface, and consistency. So just tamping in a way that you’re able to do consistently each time, just applying pressure until you can tell that the tamper has stopped compressing the grounds, while ensuring that the tamper is completely level, is fine.
The reason it’s important to get a extent surface is that an uneven surface can promote channeling, which is what takes place when water under pressure finds paths of least resistance through the coffee, leading to uneven extraction and therefore poor tasting espresso coffee, or at least poorer than it would have tasted if it hadn’t have channeled.
What sort of coffee tamper is perfect?
This is entirely down to the individual. I personally prefer handled tampers to flat tampers, and I prefer heavier weight bases with wooden handles. I’m not a big fan of the all-metal tampers, as I just find wood is a little nicer to hold than metal, nevertheless each to their own.
One thing I would say, is that I basically don’t like plastic tampers – and that there ought to be a rule against brands calling a scoop with a flat bottom, a tamper. The majority of domestic espresso machines come with these flat bottomed scoops which supposedly double as tampers, and these are about as helpful as something basically not all that beneficial.
I actually like Sage Sage coffee machines and one of the great things about them, apart from the reality that they’re usually extremely clever machines and punch way above their weight in terms of value for money, is that they usually come with proper tampers.
The latest machine from them, although, the Bambino – the base degree of the Bambino Plus, comes with a plastic tamper!
It’s like a toy version of their usual metal tamper, which I think is a shame, but apparently was necessary in order to achieve the desired lower RRP.
Nevertheless anyway – if you buy the Bambino or any espresso machine which comes with a plastic tamper, I’d highly advise buying a proper tamper (and you’ll need a 53mm tamper for the Bambino).
The Gaggia Classic Pro comes with a plastic tamper too, you’ll need a 58mm tamper for that – although the limited edition (they’re just releasing 3000 of them, all numbered) while available, come with a barista kit including a proper wooden-handled tamper.
For more on this (including details on the limited edition run) see:
Gaggia Classic Pro Review
Are all coffee tampers the same size?
No, tampers vary in size to reflect the size of the portafilter that comes with your coffee makeking equipment, which is why I’ve categorized the tampers above into the most common sizes.
It’s worth keeping in mind too, that while in many cases, the tamper is the same size as the portafilter, this isn’t always the case.
Some baskets are mildly tapered or have a ridge in them, which suggests that you need a slightly smaller tamper, which is why for example the tampers for Sage portafilters are usually 53mm and not 54mm.
If you’re in doubt, just have a quick google for “best tamper size for <insert your espresso machine here>”, and you’ll usually find others have already answered this question on forums, Reddit & so on.
Is a bigger portafilter better?
Not in reality. There’s most dispute about portafilter size and shape, and while some assume that the larger 58mm portafilter size is better due to the fact that this is what most professional machines use, this isn’t necessarily because it’s the perfect, it’s more about standardization.
The E61 espresso group was released in the early 60s, and has a 58mm group, it became extremely popular, so when other people were developing other groups for other espresso machines, 58mm probably just brewed sense to stick with this size as a standard, which is why most (not all) professional espresso machines tend to have 58mm baskets.
How do you choose a coffee tamper?
As I said earlier, the tamper is among the cheapest home barista device, so I wouldn’t stress too much about it – literally pick one that you like the look of, that has some good reviews, and if you don’t like it for whatever the reason, then wonderful – something to drop hints to friends and family about in the run up to Christmas or Birthdays ;-).
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This post to start with appeared at Coffee Blog – The UK Specialty Coffee Blog – For Lovers of REAL Coffee!
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