The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

chas wrote:Ha! That's what I use my Thor for as well.

It looks nice but seems to be a tight fit in the Vivaldi baskets. I like those RBs I got from you.

I' m glad nobody wanted that last 53mm Thor tamper I had for sale. It fits in the throat of all my grinders. A 58mm tamper won't!

Beautiful wood grain!

Chas sold me his nice "gunmetal" colour Coffeelab tamper to go with my Espro (thanks Chas!). It's good to have a regular tamper to go with my "clicking" Espro but to be honest, I prefer the balance and feel of the heavier Espro.

My coffee equipment colour scheme is all identical for my tampers, grinder and Vivaldi (black and chrome). Kinda boring compared to you fancy wood guys but I have no natural wood in my kitchen, so I find it works better for me.

Endo wrote:
My coffee equipment colour scheme is all identical for my tampers, grinder and Vivaldi (black and chrome). Kinda boring compared to you fancy wood guys but I have no natural wood in my kitchen, so I find it works better for me.

Probably for the best. My wife took one look at my new Mazzer covers & said " now we need a new kitchen to go with the covers"! They could turn out to be very, very expensive covers.

JohnB wrote:The Thor spends most of its time preventing popcorning in my Major but the others see regular use.

A tamper can't actually prevent popcorning, can it? Seems like only a layer of more beans can prevent beans from popping up out of the burrs. A tamper just prevents them from popping up as high, no?

BrewHaHa wrote: A tamper can't actually prevent popcorning, can it? Seems like only a layer of more beans can prevent beans from popping up out of the burrs. A tamper just prevents them from popping up as high, no?

That would depend on how far into the grinder throat the tamper extends and since we are being picky I doubt that one "layer" of beans would have any effect on popcorning. Multiple "layers" of beans might be more helpful but for everyone to agree on exactly how many "layers" are required would require a long, boring thread on H-B so I'll stick with my tamper. With the basket I use in the grinder throat (which the tamper sits in) the tamper weight is sitting directly on top of my dose of beans so I'd have to think that all that weight is pretty effective at "preventing" popcorning. Might be a couple short "hops" towards the end but I can live with the trade off. Beats rapidly staling beans sitting in the hopper.

JohnB wrote:

BrewHaHa wrote: A tamper can't actually prevent popcorning, can it? Seems like only a layer of more beans can prevent beans from popping up out of the burrs. A tamper just prevents them from popping up as high, no?

...for everyone to agree on exactly how many "layers" are required would require a long, boring thread on H-B so I'll stick with my tamper.

Ha! Yeah, that's why I brought it up. It seems like I've read something over there about people theorizing that popcorning can affect the quality of the coffee.

I decided to stick with the black and chrome look for all my espresso accessories (even down to my Mazzer SJ and Alessi pitcher) .

Boring I guess. But I like the harmony amongst all my coffee gear in the kitchen.

Here's my Coffeelab and Espro convex tampers (thanks Chas).

I prefer the weight and balance of the Espro. But I occasionally use the Coffeelab for a change of pace.

Some nice tamper photos in this older topic.

Thoguht I'd "bump" it up since there has been some tamper discussion recently.