A tamping device is disclosed herein which measures a tamp force applied to ground coffee in a portafilter and provides feedback to the user when a desired tamp force has been achieved so that the user can stop the tamping step when preparing the portafilter to brew espresso. The tamping device may also have a plurality of force sensors, which measure how even the user applied force is being applied to the ground coffee in the portafilter so that a density of the ground coffee is even throughout the compressed ground coffee formed by tamping the ground coffee.