No More Loose Grinds - The Devil Trick for Smooth Espresso Tamping

Proper tamping is essential to make great espresso. It ensures even and adequate extraction, hence results in more intense and desirable cup experience. This blog is not meant for novice, but for the coffee enthusiasts who have made espresso before and would like to fine tune their tamping techniques.

As a coffee enthusiast, you probably watched many YouTube videos, and read many online forums about espresso or latte making. They probably told you:

1. First Apply around 30lb pressure to evenly tamp down the grinds, 

2. And then apply around 5lb pressure, and turn the tamper to smooth out the surface. 

Then they will show you a picture of a portafilter of tamped coffee grinds with perfectly smooth top surface. Just like this:

But devils are always in the details. When you do it yourself by following the exact same steps, often times, you still end up with loose grinds on top of the packed coffee cake.

Does it matter? Yes, it matters. It has quite a few negative impacts:

1. Uneven espresso extraction, hence non-optimal flavors

2. Clogging the group head

3. Hard to knock the coffee cake out of the portafilter in one clean shot

As a serious enthusiast, you won't let it go, will you? 

In fact, there is an easy trick to get rid of the loose grinds, without buying expensive shot collar or wedge distribution tools. But it's the devil one, which is usually left out in some online tutorials. The trick is to insert a few simple motions in the same steps:

1. First Apply 30lb pressure to evenly tamp down the grinds,

2. And then raise the tamper a little bit and put it back down, then apply around 5lb pressure to turn the tamper around 90 degree clockwise, to smooth out the surface. And repeat it twice as needed.

Here you go. The loose grinds are gone. You can achieve the perfect smooth tamping just like a professional barista does.

Happy tamping!

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