"And our tamping mats pick up any stray copper bits from your kitchen counter"

Lead, in a tamping mat? I suppose if ones child was found chewing on a tamping mat it could be a concern but how can the content of a mat come to enter the food chain?

Thanks for the belly laugh Ken!

Ken Fox wrote:I don't want to be difficult, but I must ask you this question: if you were in business, say, the CEO of the Rattleware Company, would you approve this advertisement from your promotional department:

"Rattleware; our stainless does not rust, and our rubber pieces are about the size we wanted them to be."

Ken you are being difficult but I was not expecting any less from you.

As I wrote previously, I am not advertising nor advocating for Rattleware products!!! I am just stating, in response to the OP's concerns, that Rattleware, to my knowledge, produces what I would qualify as acceptable quality for food handling tools.

orphanespresso wrote:"And our tamping mats pick up any stray copper bits from your kitchen counter"

Lead, in a tamping mat? I suppose if ones child was found chewing on a tamping mat it could be a concern but how can the content of a mat come to enter the food chain?

Thanks for the belly laugh Ken!

You're right, the chunks of unknown metals and the smell of rubber Im sure has no effect on the taste and content of the coffee in the cup.....oh wait the spouts of the portafilter sit on the rubber mat when tamping and I'm willing to bet that some if not most people leave their tamper on their tamping mat when not in use. If you want to see the effects first hand clean and rinse your tamper, dry it off an put it on your counter and pick it up and smell it. It won't smell like anything. Now do the same thing but put it on your rubber tamping mat and smell. It will stink like smelly rubber. So there is some transmission of smells and if there were lead some of that would attach as well. My rubber mat is so smelly that there is no way that it is a food service rated product. In fact if it was on a gym floor the gym would be unusable because of the smell. I'm guessing that my mat is recycled tire rubber with all sorts of impurities in it. I don't know if anyone elses mat is like that or if I got a bad one because for the most part all responses in this forum have little to do with the question. I find it laughable that some of you are so OCD you won't use coffee that has been ground more than 30 seconds before locking in the portafilter and only put a tablespoon of beans in your grinder from an air free environment that you home roasted or went out of your way to get fresh off the roast but the fact that tamping mats and backflush disks stink like rubber and have questionable origins doesnt seem to bother you! Im sure it will bother you though if rattleware or some company decides to make non smelly mats that dont have hunks of metal in them because then they will go undercover on here and tell you all how great they are and how it makes a world of difference and you will all runout and buy based on fake hype. I've decided thats all these forums are is undercover people all too willing to tell you how great a product is but when your looking for real advice there is none to be found. Isn't it odd that the most highly touted companies on this forum also seem to be the ones that advertise on it? look at coffee geek and try to read the review on the Oscar machine and how it never came, you will see that they say that the reason they never finished a review is because that company stopped paying the forum so these forums admit that money influences what they say. Also just have to say the Vario is an overpriced cheap plastic grinder that has a huge advertising on these forums. How do you think the price of the vario has come down $100 dollars in the last year when manufacturing costs have gone up? Its a cheap grinder there is more than that built into the price I assure you. Wake up people and thanks for no help at all.

For what it's worth, I have tamping mats that are no-name and from Cafelat. Neither has the funky odor you report.