- Suitable for tamping fresh ground espresso before brewing
This cheap coffee tamper over delivers when it comes to the price you pay measured against the benefit you get.
The plastic featherweight ones are ok to get you going but they don’t give you a fully compressed bed of coffee and a lot of the time you will end up with water running down the side of the puck making your coffee diluted and under extracted.
Correctly tamping your coffee is a massively underrated part of the process in achieving a really good cup of coffee.
If the ground coffee is packed too tightly then you’ll find the water only dripping though and it will take ages for the espresso to be delivered into your cup. This will cause the coffee to be over extracted and creates a bitter taste.
If the water flows freely through the coffee and into your cup in 5-10 seconds then it’s even worse and you’ll get a sour or sharp taste.
If you get it just right and combine it with great freshly ground coffee and you can achieve a double espresso delivered into your cup in 25 seconds, you’ll get a coffee that will taste like heaven.
Portafilter baskets come in different sizes so be sure to measure yours before buying a coffee tamper.
This one has a 51mm diameter across its base and is suitable for all Delonghi espresso machines as 51mm is the size Delonghi use for all their espresso machines.
51mm is one of the most common sizes across many manufacturers but always check before buying because it’s important that the tamper fits perfectly into the portafilter.
If you feel like you can’t measure it down to the exact 1mm then to err on the side of caution go smaller because if you buy one and it’s too big then it won’t fit and then you won’t be able to tamp anything.
The main thing to remember is that getting great coffee is about doing the same thing over and over again and tamping is no different.
Don’t worry too much about the actual pressure you are using, just make sure you go straight down and not at an angle and press firmly.
Whilst you are getting the hang of it, once you have tamped, press your finger down on the bed of coffee and it should be nice and firm all over.
If there are parts of the bed that are soft then tamp again to get even firmness all over.
Verdict
This is a really well weighted tamper that will allow you to consistently achieve a good strong bed of coffee that will give you much better results than the plastic things that a lot of coffee machines come with.
At 582g it’s a really nice weight and feels strong and solid when you hold it.
Finished in shiny chrome it’s well designed and will look good sitting on the top of any espresso machine ready to be used with every espresso you pull, no need to hide this away in the cupboard.
It looks good, feels good and tamps coffee perfectly for a bargain price. There is nothing to not like about this coffee tamper.
- Suitable for tamping fresh ground espresso before brewing
Last update on 2024-03-26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
