Works well with La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi ii portafilter. Well made.

Seriously love this tamper—no more uneven pressing! Perfect for beginners. It catches a tiny bit of coffee powder, but honestly, no biggie, a quick brush fixes it. After 3–4 months of use, it’s become my absolute go-to. Just bought another one to gift a friend!

I have the Bravo tamper and The Force Tamper for years and I use them alternately. I have very extensive experience with them. This zeroHero Espesso tamper is basically a clone of the Force Tamper that I paid $200 for a few years ago plus all their 58mm tamper bases.I really like this zeroHero tamper. It feels really good in the hand. It is easy to use and the tamp force is very consistent and it gives the level of tamping force you need every time. The Bravo tamper definitely has the best hand feel because it is complete made out of heavy metal and it is so heavy. But the zeroHero also feels very good in the hand. It fits in my the center of my palm very well. It is lighter in weight and the advantage is it gives you less hand fatigue. Mine comes with a ribbed base.The only thing I wish it had would be a flat base or a convex tamp base. This tamper is a super good deal for its design and functionality. I get consistent espresso out of my Decent Espresso machine with the same program and same grind size while using this zeroHero tamper. The espresso coffee I get from the zeroHero tamper tastes just as good as my other tampers. I highly recommend this.

I love this espresso tamper. It works great, especially for beginners, because it takes the guesswork out of getting an even tamp. The spring-loaded pressure feels very precise, and the sound feedback is helpful so I know I’m getting a consistent result each time.The quality feels excellent. It is much heavier than the tamper I was using before, which seems intentional, and it works so much better. I also like that it makes tamping effortless while still giving a more professional, even puck.Just be sure to measure your portafilter before ordering. I have two espresso setups, and it fit one but not the other. Overall, it’s a great value and worth the extra cost for a perfect tamp with very little effort.

Once you fall into the trap of gear acquisition syndrome with coffee, you end up with more gadgets and doodads than you know what to do with. But what is a hobby without obsession?I've owned many tampers over my time as a full blown coffee nerd. This is the first spring loaded tamper I've owned which is ultimately what made me pull the trigger and make a little more space on the coffee bar for yet another gadget. If you don't know what a spring loaded tamper is, in a nutshell, it functions much like a regular tamper but has a limiting spring that only allows for so much pressure to be applied before it produces a click and releases the pressure. The idea being that you can't tamp too hard. Now I will say that adequate testing has been done by creators in the community that have pretty much shown that it is borderline impossible to tamp too hard without going well out of your way to do so. The final verdict being that you can ruin a shot by not tamping hard enough, but not with tamping too hard. The real value of a spring loaded tamper is that consistent tamping pressure means that when you're dialing in your shots, you have one less variable to account for and theoretically, it should make dialing in shots easier.The quality of the machining and assembly is good. It's not on par with the boutique manufacturers in the coffee world, but it's also substantially cheaper than their offerings. And yes, the current price of $55 is not cheap when compared with other options for spring loaded tampers, but it's a lot less than the boutique brands I'm talking about.Prior to this tamper, I was using a self leveling tamper that was not spring loaded and was very happy. Worth noting that this tamper in addition to being spring loaded is also self leveling. For those who don't know, that means that there is a plate just above the tamper that rests on the edges of your basket that ensures that the tamper hits the bed level and prevents uneven tamping. My old self leveling tamper always did the job well and I never got an uneven tamp through hundreds and hundreds of shots. However, the first couple of times I used the zeroHero tamper, I was shocked to see my bed was at a noticeable angle which indicates the tamper did not come down flush on the coffee bed. I've used it for probably 50-60 shots now at this point, and it will randomly just decide to do this. I'm not even sure how it manages to give me an uneven tamp when the self leveling aspect should make that pretty much impossible to do. Maybe an issue with the spring? I don't know, I didn't take it apart to check anything. I found this very frustrating and have found myself putting this tamper in the drawer and pulling out my old self leveling tamper again.And that is really my issue. If something gives an undesirable result every time, you can make adjustments until you figure it out and then get consistent results. Or determine that there is a defect and return/exchange the product. When the issues are intermittent and inconsistent, you don't really have any course of action to take to remedy the problem. And with some bigger names in the budget friendly spectrum of coffee gadgets like Normcore and IKape offering spring loaded tampers at lower price points, it's very hard to recommend a product that costs more and has given less than perfect results. Maybe both those mentioned brands have the same issues? Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I don't think so, but I don't have experience with any other spring loaded tamper to use as a reference point. And I'm not insinuating that zeroHero is unusable or anything, just that it's frustrating to pay a premium over competitive products and then have any issues.I really wanted to love this tamper. I really, really did. Not just because I'm a coffee nerd who loves gadgets, but because I want to see more small companies get into making gear and expanding consumer choices in a fast growing market. But I just can't give justification for why you should go with this tamper over another.If zeroHero wants to reach out and offer guidance or make a case for their product, I'll hear them out. And if I figure something out that removes the inconsistency issue, I'll update my review. But for now, this gets 3 stars and no recommendation from me.