Espresso – The Art of Tamping
I’m a pretty serious coffee geek. In the past few years I’ve learned a lot more about coffee than ever before, and there is still much to learn before a coffee Jedi am I. One of the side effects of being in this geeky crowd is that you may find yourself in the middle of a debate about the correct technique for tamping your espresso shot. Once you’ve gotten your coffee perfectly ground, and dosed into the portafilter, it has to be tamped before the shot can be pulled. The accepted standard for tamping coffee in a 58mm portafilter involves the application of 30 pounds of pressure, using a flat-bottomed stainless steel tamper.
You could go all crazy and get a tamper that has an exotic wood handle or even a built-in force gauge for making sure your barista powers are perfectly calibrated. But I’m pretty fond of the standard stainless steel model, and am learning to consistently deliver a uniform pressure to the grounds. Half the fun of coffee is the ritual…