Barista Magazine

FEB-MAR 2014

Barista Magazine is your home for the worldwide community of coffee and the people who make it.

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F OAM : N E WS TAMP ON TOUR! WHEN PRIMA COFFEE Equipment began working on the Prima Tamp several years ago, we set out to equip baristas with a tool that would help them more comfortably and consistently prepare tasty espresso. Three goals guided our project: Make it work, make it pretty, and make it here, in Louisville, Ky. We partnered with local cafés and a neighborhood metal shop to develop what's become our favorite espresso tamper in terms of both form and function. Since the Prima Tamp was released one year ago, we've been thrilled to sit back and watch it make a real difference for coffee professionals all over the world. It all started with the angle. We learned that a handle sitting perpendicular to its base, as on traditional tampers, forces the wrist and arm off center and requires a specific posture that's just plain unnatural. With a tilted handle, however, a barista can easily take a position that encourages improved technique. We designed the Prima 20 barista magazine Tamp to make proper form comfortable and reduce tamping-related wrist strain, removing one more obstacle between barista and beautiful espresso. Because a fixed angle couldn't accommodate every person or every countertop, we built a simple mechanism that turns this tamp into everyone's tool. Being adjustable, any barista of any build can use it at any bar. Many hardworking baristas still haven't felt the difference that the Prima Tamp can make, though, and we think they're missing out. In an effort to give professional baristas all over the United States a chance to try the tamp, we sent it out on a coast-to-coast tour. The 37-stop roadtrip has so far sent the tamp to Ohio and Washington, D.C.; New York and North Carolina. It's hit Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona, and is headed west to California in February. Check out the stops the Prima Tamp will make in the coming months (see next page for schedule), and feel free to visit to see it in action. —Chris Elliott

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