Espresso Tampers Reviewed: Bravo vs. the BOSeTAMPER

The espresso tamper has always intrigued me. More so really the act of tamping itself, but the tamper is the implement necessary for that process. Within the last decade, innovations in home espresso machines and grinders have significantly altered the expectations people have in terms of what’s possible with home brewing equipment. Improvements to temperature control and stability, the ability to regulate extraction flow and pressure, single-dosing and weight based grinding have all become desired, if not necessary functionality within the discourse. 

But where does that leave our humble yet essential espresso tamper? Has it been left behind in the flurry of innovation that has swept up home machines and grinders? I’m here to tell you that, as a matter of fact, it hasn’t. Moreover, I’ve selected two products vying for the top spot pricewise in our assortment of tampers to give you an in-depth look at how they work and, more importantly, if they might be something you’d consider adding to your arsenal. With that, let’s dive into Brazil’s finest, the Bravo Tamper.

The Bravo Tamper

If you haven’t been keeping up with our livestreams (don’t worry, they’re all on YouTube so you can catch up at your own pace) then you know we’ve been working with Danilo Lodi, WBC Judge and coach of Boram Um the  2023 World Barista Champion, to deliver a new tier of educational content on our channel from the perspective of someone who is actively involved in the world of competitive specialty coffee. What you might not know is that our relationship with Danilo actually extends back to 2019, and that his strong advocacy led to us carrying the Bravo Tamper.

Invented in Brazil by Gilberto dos Santos, the Bravo Tamper is a pressure regulating tamper designed with a spring loaded handle to ensure consistent tamping pressure. It guides tamps straight down with the help of a spring loaded outer ring that rests on the sides of the filter basket. Danilo’s preference for the tamper is founded on its consistency above all else. In fact,  it was one of the tools used by 2023 World Barista Champion Boram Um in his winning routine. Given its reliability at the highest level of specialty coffee competition, the utility of the Bravo Tamper as a home tamper is immediately apparent.

In the Hand

Looking at the Bravo Tamper, it’s an easy product to like. Despite its fairly modest packaging, the tamper both looks and feels professional. The handle, made of either powder-coated aluminum or a mix of lacquered wood and polished aluminum, features a tapered design that narrows towards the base and terminates into a contoured groove to align with your thumb. On top of the handle is a polished disc that can be removed with a flathead screwdriver to access the weighted spring and the bolt that can be adjusted to change tamping pressure. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The base is made of polished stainless steel and is available in both 58.5 and 54.7mm diameters to minimize play as much as possible. This goal is further aided by the outer ring I mentioned earlier. It’s not magnetic or grooved like a dosing funnel, but it helps to prevent angled tamping and is similarly spring loaded so it can slide upwards as the tamper descends and then return to position as it ascends. In the hand, the Bravo Tamper is comfortable and weighty, though potentially unwieldy for people with smaller hands as it holds the distinction of being the tallest tamper we carry at approximately 4.7” tall. To address this, Bravo consolidated the design into their much more compact “Mini Tamper” which retains all of the same consistency-oriented features but is instead operated with your palm.

Adjusting the Bravo Tamper

As is the case with a number of spring-loaded tampers, the Bravo Tamper’s tamping pressure can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing tension on the spring. In the case of the Bravo, this is done by adjusting the aforementioned bolt inside the handle. By default, the tamping pressure is set to its maximum of 34 lbs and can be lowered as far as 26 lbs. The total range is pretty limited and there’s no easy way to identify where your tamping pressure is currently set. Additionally, a one mm turn of the bolt is equal to a roughly 2.5 lb change in pressure and Gilberto recommends that the bolt be resealed with tape in order to prevent it from moving after you’ve made your adjustment.

In my personal experience, opening the Bravo Tamper is really pretty easy. That's something that I would put as a more neutral attribute however. Upon opening the tamper I realized (as I mentioned above) that I wouldn't be able to identify the changes I was making or take note of them in any meaningful way. The best procedure I could come up with would be to have all of the users present while adjusting the tamper and as you turn the bolt to have each person press down on the tamper so you can settle on a weight that works for everyone.

Is the Bravo for You?

So, while the Bravo Tamper can be adjusted to tamp at different pressures, it’s not something you’ll realistically ever do more than once. The Bravo Tamper really has nothing to prove though. It was used in the highest level of coffee competition there is, and if that’s not an endorsement of its capabilities then I don’t know what is. Again, it all comes back to consistency. Back when Danilo recommended the Bravo Tamper to us, that was his primary justification. His approach to coffee is simply to apply the scientific method and to adjust only a single variable at a time. To do this successfully, you must maintain the same pressure every time you tamp.

Does all this mean that Bravo designed the perfect tamper? No. But what’s more useful is to talk a little bit about one of the pitfalls of spring-loaded tampers in general. The concept behind a spring-loaded tamper is that the resistance from the spring helps guarantee that you’ve tamped hard enough via physical feedback. With the Bravo Tamper, you can hear and feel a click when you’ve tamped hard enough. However, whether it’s a barista at a shop, a coworker in the breakroom, or just another person in your house who uses your machine, there’s a chance that they just might not push hard enough for the spring to compress all the way—that means there can be inconsistency when using this style of tamper.

The BOSeTAMPER

Unsurprisingly, human fallibility is a factor that affects espresso preparation as much as any endeavor, whether it be due to lack of upper body strength, improper training, or simply not putting in the effort necessary to do something properly. When you’re competing at the professional level, those small details can mean the difference between victory and defeat; at home, the stakes might be lower but we are talking about the espresso that YOU will be drinking. What if you could be certain that you were tamping exactly the same way every time? And not just you: what if anyone in any setting, no matter their skill level or experience could be 100% certain they had the exact same tamp every single time? Enter the BOSeTAMPER, a handheld automated tamper from our friends at Boston Electronics.

Automatic tampers have existed for some time now. In fact we actually have an auto-tamper that we use on bar here in the office. The benefits are obvious in that anyone can use it to properly tamp their shot with minimal effort. That said, automatic tampers are prohibitively expensive when it comes to home use and often cost upwards of $700. Couple that with the additional counter space required to use one and the result is a solution with limited application outside of a commercial environment. The BOSeTAMPER, by contrast, is significantly more accessible both in size and in price (though it is the most expensive handheld tamper we carry).

Before you can change any settings, or tamp for that matter, you have to turn the BOSeTAMPER on. On top of the housing in what I’ll refer to as the “front,” there’s an OLED display surrounded by three capacitive touch buttons to the left, right, and below. If you haven’t oriented yourself around this navigation, it can take some getting used to, especially on the more opaque black and white housings where the button positions are less obvious; an internal red LED will always illuminate  when you successfully press a button and while the battery is charging. You’ll want to fully charge your BOSeTAMPER before first use via the included charging pad (the internal 9 volt battery takes 1-2 hours for a complete charge). Once fully charged, just tap the power button beneath the OLED to turn it on. You can always confirm your current battery life via the indicator on the right side of the display.

Pressing and holding the button to the right of the display for three seconds allows you to set your desired auto-off time between 30 seconds, 300 seconds, or unlimited operation. Regardless of your selection, pressing and holding the power button for three seconds will power the BOSeTAMPER off manually. One thing I did want to note is that when you power on the BOSeTAMPER, the screen will display a logo rather than any tamping variables, etc. You can begin tamping, or press the left or right buttons to view settings.

In the Hand

Unlike the Bravo Tamper, which is designed to ensure consistency by helping to eliminate human error in puck prep, the BOSeTAMPER simply requires the barista to place it on top of a portafilter and give it a twist. The design is a bit like a group head with dedicated slots fitting over the tabs on the portafilter and an internal sensor to trigger the tamping mechanism when the tabs are in position (i.e. after you’ve twisted it). The motor then activates, causing the tamping plate in the center to descend to your desired depth and tamp your espresso.

When discussing the BOSeTAMPER it’s more useful to think about it as a handheld tamping machine rather than just a tamper. I say this because the number of options that you can adjust go far beyond simply changing tamping pressure. But what does it feel like to use? Compared to a traditional tamper which features handles that are shaped to fit into a person’s hand (the good ones anyway) to provide ergonomic support while performing a physical action, the BOSeTAMPER is much wider and I found it most comfortable to grip from the top. Placing it onto a portafilter and twisting reminded me vaguely of using a cookie cutter or rimming a cocktail glass, but there’s no force or precision required. Just make sure that the tabs line up and you’re all set.

Weight-wise, the BOSeTAMPER is fairly light, clocking in at only 0.7 lb though it’s fairly well distributed so as not to feel insubstantial. The housing is made of plastic, but the money you’re spending is primarily going towards the technology; the complete package, including the free charging pad and the branded carrying case, level up the presentation as a whole.

Designing Your Tamp

The first variable you can adjust is tamping depth, which  can be set between 2 and 20mm. As you might imagine, this determines how far the tamping plate will descend when tamping. You’ll need to make changes to the depth based on a variety of factors such as your dose, the size or shape of your basket or your desired compression or tamping pressure. Tamping depth can be adjusted on the main display simply by pressing the buttons to the left or right of the OLED. Your current selection will be displayed numerically. It’s worth noting, however, that BOSe themselves list the maximum force exerted while tamping as 30 lb with built-in protection to prevent damage during tamping regardless of depth.

To access the remaining tamping options you simply press and hold the left button for approximately three seconds. While the delay may seem a bit long, it’s actually very helpful in preventing you from accidentally navigating away from your current menu. For that matter, once you’ve entered a programming screen the BOSeTAMPER doesn’t time out from the menu (at least not after the three minutes I timed it for) so you’re in no rush to make your selection. That said, you will have to intentionally leave the programming menu by cycling through all of the tamping variables until you return to the main screen, which you do by pressing and holding that left button again.

In total, the BOSeTAMPER has four tamping variables that can be adjusted: we covered tamping depth already, but the remaining three are Dwelling Time, Tamp Speed, and Number of Tamps. Dwelling Time is the duration that the tamping plate remains descended and in contact with your coffee. This can be set between 0 and 1.5 seconds in 0.25 second increments. When coupled with tamping depth, dwelling time can help to ensure that the coffee remains compressed by applying force for longer.

Tamp Speed controls how quickly the tamping plate descends on your coffee and can be adjusted between three speeds: slow, medium, and fast. Slower, more deliberate tamps can help to prevent coffee from being lifted back up via suction in a particularly tight fitting basket. Like the Bravo Tamper, the BOSeTAMPER’s tamping plates are all 58.5mm to help prevent coffee from riding up on the sides of the basket with as tight a fit as possible. Number of Tamps is the final variable you can adjust and, as you might expect, you choose to have the tamping plate descend 1, 2, or 3 times. Additional tamps can be helpful to make sure that no coffee is left unsettled.

Outside of programming, additional customization in the form of interchangeable tamping plates allow you to swap the stock 58.5mm flat plate for one of several options including convex and ripple (flat with a series of concentric circles) in order to further influence the flow of water in the puck.

Is the BOSeTAMPER for You?

To some extent, it’s hard to evaluate the BOSeTAMPER in quite the same way as something like the Bravo. But, at the end of the day, it accomplishes the same goal of producing consistently tamped shots of espresso. However, as I previously mentioned, operator error can prevent a person from tamping properly with the Bravo. The BOSeTAMPER on the other hand puts tamping entirely on autopilot. A traditionalist who prefers to feel the process of tamping may be less enthusiastic about handing over the process to a machine, but for a home barista, household, or shop looking to guarantee identical results there’s a lot to love.

As a side note, modern home espresso has been fertile ground for the cross pollination of gadgetry and engineering (and somewhere that the BOSeTAMPER fits in perfectly). If you’ve been experimenting with flow control, single-dosing, or you’ve taken to monitoring your extraction profiles with something like the Pressensor, then the possibilities of tamp crafting are likely to appeal to you.

The Wiedemann Precision Tamper

You thought that was it huh? Well not quite. I wanted to spend just a little bit of time talking about a final and slightly more conventional option. Compared to the Bravo and BOSeTAMPERs, the Wiedemann Precision is around half the price, but if you’re still working out the financials of your espresso setup it might still be a bit steep compared to some of the more entry level options 

In the Hand

Now that we’re back in the realm of traditional tampers, your money winds up being spent in slightly different directions. First is the weight and build quality: the Wiedemann Precision Tamper clocks in at  430.5g / 0.95 lb (wood) and 548.8g / 1.21 lb (aluminum). One of the biggest downsides to online shopping is that you can’t touch or feel anything before buying it. A well-made product (literally in this case) makes a great impression when you actually get to hold it in your hand. The Wiedemann Precision Tampers are available with both wood and powder coated aluminum handles and feature a thick and heavy 58.5mm base with a generous curve that seamlessly joins with the taper of the handle.

The weight, thickness, and diameter of the base, as well as the comfort of the handle make Wiedemann’s tampers an incredibly solid choice for a more straightforward approach to espresso prep. On lighter-weight tampers and those with thinner bases, it’s much easier to accidentally tamp at an angle, leading to an uneven bed and ultimately channeling. The tight fit of the 58.5mm base (I’m seeing a trend here) also keeps coffee off of the sides of your basket. Without any additional forms of tamping assistance like an outer ring to secure the base while tamping, the extra 0.5mm really helps to eliminate play in the basket and again, the weight of the tamper puts in work as well to thoroughly compress your puck of espresso.

Wood is Good

Wiedemann sources all of the wood used for their tampers from sustainable forestry, so you can enjoy the premium and natural quality without contributing to harmful practices. Wiedemann itself is also owned and operated by founder Nico Wiedemann, and all of their products are produced by hand in Germany. Each tamper (and any Wiedemann wood accessory) comes with a quality certificate that is signed by the employee who inspected and approved it.

The Wiedemann Tamper is also part of a much larger ecosystem of products. We offer Wiedemann wood customization on a wide range of products including espresso machines and grinders. They also produce a substantial number of their own espresso prep tools and accessories like WDT whisks, tamping stations, wood handle cleaning brushes and even vegan leather mats to protect the cup trays on your machine from scratching. This allows you to build out a bar while matching your accessories to your machine in one of several wood species including Blackened Oak, Oak, Olive Wood and Walnut.

Our assortment is still expanding, but the video below should give you a sense of what I’m talking about.

Going all in on Wiedemann is also a plus if you have any interest in their equipment organizer, the Wiedemann Hangup. The Hangup is a wall mounted board with between 2 - 5 rare earth magnets that is designed to serve as a space-saving alternative to cluttering your workspace with all of your tools. Wiedemann’s accessories are designed with high-iron-content steel that makes them magnetic enough to stick to the Hangup.

Compatible accessories include:

• Wiedemann Precision Tamper
• Wiedemann WDT Tool
• Wiedemann Cleaning Brush

[Format as a bulleted list in a block possibly]

Wiedemann also produces an accessory called the Puck which is a magnetic disc with retractable nubs that are designed to to hold onto the inside of a portafilter basket. With the Puck you can store (and display) your additional portafilters, keeping them within arm’s reach of your machine. Of course, your main portafilter should still always be kept in your machine to keep it hot for the next time you brew.

Is the Wiedemann Tamper for You?

Wiedemann’s tamper, and by extension all of their products, simply looks good, feels good, and performs well. I think people have been sleeping on the Wiedemann Hangup. Anyone who opts in for wood accents on their machine and isn’t tempted by a Bravo Tamper or BOSeTAMPER should really consider the Wiedemann Precision Tamper. You might think that I’d have more to say, but honestly this is a product whose true quality must be felt to be truly appreciated. But I assure you, when you get one of these in your hand, you will absolutely appreciate it.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far you have my sincere thanks. Are tampers smart enough to take over the world? Not yet. But we’re fast approaching a time when even specialty coffee may shift further away from “hand crafting” beverages in favor of mechanical intervention. Whether you’re looking for an espresso loadout on par with barista champions or to craft the perfect tamp right down to the last meticulous detail, now is a good time to be a barista.

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