Best Automatic Coffee Tamper

A commercial tamper for home use is likely overkill, but, as a coffee blogger, I have always really liked the idea of removing as many variables as possible so that I can truly focus on reviewing the product that is in front of me.

If you’re currently in the market for an automatic tamper, then you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t give the Cinoart PT2 a good hard look. The Cinoart PT2 not only does exactly that, but it might just be the best-automated tamper currently available.

For the sake of transparency, Cinoart did send me this unit for review, but that will not have any impact on the contents of this article or the opinions that I express.

Design

I really appreciate the simple minimal, and mostly unbranded look that they went with.

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An automatic tamper is exciting from a workflow perspective, but I don’t necessarily think it’s an item that should draw too much attention to itself on a brew bar.

I’ve seen plenty of setups I liked using the more distinctively shaped puck press, but I think the Cinoart will be able to blend in with a wider range of gear visually.

With that being said, I do wish that the silver lid was done up in the same color as the rest of the body to give it an overall more uniform look. However, the silver version doesn’t have that same problem.

Apart from the very simple looks, the other thing that differentiates the PT2 is the warm glowing yellow light in the tamping area.

While I do appreciate the more futuristic look that it gives, I kind of wish that they gave you the option to cycle through at least a couple of other colors other than yellow to match your own brew bar.

If you don’t like ambient lighting at all, there is the possibility to turn that off.

Build Quality

The build quality of the PT2 was very good. The whole body is metal; it weighs 3.7 kilograms and is extremely rigid, as you would expect from something that can produce up to 38 kilograms of pressure.

Specifications

There is a rubber ring on the bottom to eliminate sliding and a removable rubber mat on the inside, which was a surprisingly useful feature for easy cleaning.

On top, several membrane buttons are used for the setup and recall of programs, and a digital display shows your current settings, with the left number showing the pressure and the right side showing the number of tamping cycles. More on that later

The most intriguing feature about the PT2, at least for me, was their so-called guide leveling system, or GLS.

And despite being extremely gimmicky sounding, I’d realized that it was solving a very real problem.

Having a level tamp is probably one of the most important aspects of puck preparation, and maybe even why many people will opt for an automatic tamper.

With a traditional hand tamping, there’s always the opportunity to have an uneven tamp by moving either the portafilter, the tamper, or both.

On an automatic tamper, you’re guaranteed to have the tamping piston move straight up and down, but what I failed to realize is that there’s still the potential to tilt the portafilter relative to that piston.

This issue can be largely eliminated by properly adjusting the lower guides to hold the portafilter as tight as possible.

However, it still needs to be able to slide in and out, and therefore there will always be some movement.

The GLS system adds a collar that comes down with the tamper and contacts the top edge of the filter basket.

This forces the portafilter and basket into the perfect position relative to the damping piston.

This is a clever system that I think improves greatly on the basic cradle that most other systems use.