Espresso Stuff

In addition to 2 pounds of Intelligetsia Black Cat Roast, I received a couple new Espresso toys on Friday. Two are new products from Bumper, a tamping stand and a knock-box. The tamping stand is really nice. I use a Naket Portafilter exclusively and have been using the edge of out kitchen sink as a makeshift stand. The bumper stand is perfect for either Naked or Traditional PFs. The notch for traditional PFs makes a nice place to hang my tamper.

The Bumper Knock-Box is a great upgrade from our old one. It's much larger, has a raised rear area to prevent slosh from soupy pucks from going everywhere, and has much thicker rubber. It reeks of quality.

Our old box was the traditional low, square stainless box with black wood frame. It has a couple of problems. The edges of the stainless insert dig into the wood and trash the paint on the corners of the box. I installed small rubber feet to the wood but they only reduce the wear, not prevent it. Also the bar is lower than the front edge so it is easy to hit the PF in the edge at the same time as the bar - denting the stainless insert. It was a good starter box, but the Bumper box is much better. As shown in the picture, the Bumper has a large rubber base so it feels very solid -- a "good thing" when whacking it with a heavy E61 PF. The Bar is about twice as thick.

The only thing I would change about both is the finish, both products are finished in brushed stainless. Everything else in the Espresso world is polished. Nit picking for sure. Chris Coffee has the whole line of Bumper products

The last thing I received was a 53mm tamper for a friend. He has a classic LaPavoni hand pump machine and continues to use the plastic tamper that came with it. It's really hard to get a consistent tamp with a plastic tamper so I got a nice all steel model. It is surprisingly heavy. I didn't weigh it but it must be twice as heavy as my Aluminium/Stainless Reg Barber.