espressoed wrote:As far as the original poster is concerned, if your friends listed a tamper go ahead and buy them one. It's a wedding gift that they asked for; at best a functional gift they'll use often and enjoy, at worst a really nice paperweight--also functional. Either way it matters not to anyone but them.

espressoed wrote:There's a difference between a pressurized portafilter and pressurized portafilter baskets that I don't believe to be semantic. Dan's response post shows a pressurized basket, not a pressurized portafilter.

espressoed wrote:I've read commentary from many users of machines with pressurized portafilters (Saeco/Starbucks and the like with a spring system in the handle itself) that indicate that tamping has little or no effect, thus I've no reason to believe it isn't so. On the other hand, after first receiving my Krups as a gift I used it for the better part of a year with the pressurized baskets and in my experience tamping absolutely did have an effect on the shots I pulled. Since moving to a regular double basket I've occasionally used the pressurized single basket to finish off a few left over beans from a fresh bag and confirmed my initial experience with the positive effect of tamping in the use of these baskets.

As far as the original poster is concerned, if your friends listed a tamper go ahead and buy them one. It's a wedding gift that they asked for; at best a functional gift they'll use often and enjoy, at worst a really nice paperweight--also functional. Either way it matters not to anyone but them.