Saint Anthony Industries sent us samples of the BT Wedge and New Levy in 53mm sizing, along with a Bloc tamping station for purposes of review.

There's just something remarkably special about hand crafted tools for coffee and espresso. Even more so when the artisans creating them could be your very own neighbours (as an example, Reg Barber used to make his tampers on Vancouver Island, only a short ferry ride from my home town of Vancouver).

I remember that singular moment when I bought my first Reg Barber espresso tamper, over 20 years ago. It cost a lot -- if I recall, it was over $60 back in 1998 ($93 in today's dollars) --  and as I recall at the time, I questioned spending that much on something so exotic and specialist for my home espresso setup. But you know what? Looking back, it was a superlative purchase because it made me more in tune with the espresso making process. It made espresso very personal and very... intimate. It was probably the best $60 I ever spent on anything related to espresso, outside of the grinder, machine, and coffee.

That Reg Barber tamper made me better at espresso: not because the tamper itself, in a detached way could make the espresso better, but because I wanted to make my espresso better in part because of the hand crafted nature of the tools I bought to make it so. I could have easily bought a $15 basic steel piston tamper from a local kitchenware store, and it would have done almost exactly the same physical job as the Reg Barber; but I wouldn't have the pride of ownership and wont to "live up" to the product, like I did with the Reg Barber.

Bringing us up to today, we're going to be looking at another set of hand crafted, artisan tools made right here in North America, by your own neighbours. Their product line isn't cheap, and sure enough, you can easily find a cheap Chinese made variant of some of these products. The question is, which one actually brings more value to your home espresso setup: the cheap Chinese knockoffs that are just utilitarian tools, or the hand crafted, hand-lathed tools a company like Saint Anthony Industries creates.

We're going to be looking at three of Saint Anthony Industries' tools for making espresso: their New Levy Tamper, their BT Wedge Distribution Tool, and their Bloc Tamping Station. The entire setup costs $348 (shipping included), which is certainly not cheap. There is an ethereal, esoterical aspect to these tools that go well beyond their form and function -- at least for some espresso enthusiasts -- that dramatically raise the value of these tools vis a vis Chinese knock offs and similar products that can be bought for a fraction of this cost.  

We'll dive into that, but will also be true to our review goals here at CoffeeGeek: we will test to see if these products do -- on a mechanical, detached from emotion way -- improve your home espresso. We'll take a look at the build quality, the form, and the function of these products and weigh all these aspects along with the more difficult to measure benefits of using small batch, handcrafted tools to make your home espresso better.

Now dive into our Quickshot Review for Saint Anthony Industry tamping tools!