Reg Barber of Canada is building us some very nice espresso tampers.  We like the modern appearance of satin finished aluminium tamper handles, but for our money a metal or high density synthetic tamper handle is unpleasantly cold when you've just tumbled out of bed at 6am in winter to make your wake-up espresso shot.

For us there is only one material to use for a tamper handle; solid wood.  Even on the coldest morning it doesn't suck all the heat from your palm, but almost instantly feels comfortable.

We have opted for wenge, being the 'blackest' wood that we could find, and the Reg Barber 'short' handle profile as this is Reg's original design, and as with so many things we think it is still the best.  The base is solid brass.  After much deliberation we changed our minds from our initial request for a 'c-flat' base profile to just plain old 'flat'.  The Londinium Espresso logo has been engraved into the top of the handle.

We are really pleased with finished product, and have ordered them in diameters of 50mm (Cremina), 54mm (Maximatic), and 58mm (Bosco) to ensure the owners of these machines can obtain a tamper of equal performance that is an absolute joy to use for literally decades to come.

P.S.  the crochet work is Reg's, not ours, and is not included.  The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that only the top of the handle has been finished on this prototype.