Alpro Barista Foamable Coconut Plant-Based Drink, 1L

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The best results are achieved when you use ice-cold equipment. Your French Press Can Make Frothy Milk Unlike most non-barista coconut milks, this doesn’t have too much of a coconutty flavour. So while it doesn’t completely distract from the coffee’s flavour, the milk still dominates the drink slightly. 3.5/5 Califia Farms Oat Barista I used equal parts cold brew concentrate and milk for each test to determine the milk’s influence on flavour and texture. Almond Breeze Barista You can taste the coffee’s notes, even though they’re muted. The soy pairs stunningly well with the coffee, even if the consistency is just a little thinner than you’d want. The coffee is the star here, and that’s what matters. 4/5 Minor Figures

But as I found in my oat milk test, Califia Farms’s barista edition has a chemical aftertaste that just doesn’t go away. The promising early signs are all steamrolled by this late hit of off-tasting notes. 3/5 Good Hemp Barista This is amazing. Sproud has a super creamy texture, and the pea protein flavour is very muted, more so than even Provamel’s oat milk. The ingredients list begins with the standard amount of oat content — 10% — with rapeseed oil, iodised salt, an acidity regulator and calcium and vitamin supplements rounding up the rest of the composition. Oaty Bruce Rude Health’s barista almond milk is both quite sweet and acidic in cold brew. There’s no almond flavour and the consistency resembles that of semi-skimmed milk added to cold brew. In my opinion, coconut cream and coconut milk are the best alternative milks to use for cold foam. Other delicious options you have are almond milk, cashew milk, oat milk and soy milk.

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Minor Figures turned out to be amongst the best plant-based milk for cold brew coffee too. There’s a fruity acidity to this, not as loud as Good Hemp’s, but it’s still rather unexpected and very welcome. Going with the theme, Provamel is the oatiest of them all. And when added to cold brew, it makes for a super acidic drink. You don’t taste the pea protein at all, though, which is a relief.

But while there are hints of oat in it, this resembles watered-down cold brew with a splash of milk a lot more than an equal parts composition. You don’t taste those weird synthetic notes, but you don’t taste much else either. It’s very average and doesn’t do anything to the coffee in terms of the flavour. The Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk uses 10.5% oats, 1.5% coconut cream, sunflower oil, 0.5% faba bean protein, sunflower seed extract, nutritional yeast (it’s the only brand on the market to use this in its milks), sea salt and an acidity regulator. Rude Health Barista Almond Unlike Oatly, Oaty Bruce is, well, pretty oaty when it comes to cold brew. This was quite surprising as it isn’t cloyingly acidic to the point that it would taste sour. The coconut milk froths well, but not as much as you’d expect — this is essentially a blend of soy and coconut milk, and the protein in the soybeans help with the frothing. And that price is reflected by the ingredients list, which, given the milk’s effectiveness in this test, is stunning. At least 15% non-GMO soybeans (almost double the amount most barista soy milks have), brown sugar, sea salt, and calcium carbonate. Read how Ozone is reusing its coffee sustainably with a traditional technique. Minor FiguresUpon frothing, there are tiny bubbles that don’t all go away after tapping. But the foam itself is very good. Unlike many soy milks, it doesn’t produce any dry foam. Crucially, when added to espresso, it doesn’t curdle or separate, which is another common mishap with soy milk in coffee. 4/5 Minor Figures There’s not a lot of almond flavour, which is due to the fact that there are more oats than almonds in this milk. This isn’t a watery drink, which is a plus, but the flavour is just a little too loud and funky to actually make the coffee shine. 2.5/5 Sproud Barista Regular alternative milks usually curdle or don’t foam and froth so well. What Alternative Milk Is Best For Cold Foam? The all-important taste test. After so much frothing, the next stage was tasting these best barista milks for their flavour and to determine how they perform in coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos.

I think this was the first time when I used almond milk as a barista so I was excited see how it reacts and tastes. From barista perspective it was quite similar to coconut milk as it created nice latte art but couldn’t handle higher temperatures. The reasons behind that were the same as with coconut milk. Mari pointed out that again Alpro has processed the almond milk quite a lot which could be seen in the ingredients list. It had normal amount of fat but a bit less protein which is replaced with stabilizers to create nice texture when steamed. Also the stabilizers affected to the foam so that it was easy to get good microfoam. Many independent coffee shops use barista blend plant milk like Oatly or the well respected plant-based barista milk that is available from Califia Farms. Can You Froth Coconut Milk In Nespresso Frother? Good Hemp is the UK’s most well-known hemp milk brand. While it does a pretty great oat and hemp blend, it’s not really made for coffee. This is the hardest milk to find. You can’t find Happy Happy Soy Boy in any supermarket or health store in the UK. That’s because, as the brand explained to The Vegan Review, it’s primarily marketed as a foodservice product and is only available in coffee shops that use it as their house soy milk. The flavour feels slightly artificial and overly oaty, and there are vivid notes of pea protein. Combined, these take over the coffee’s flavour.

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It tastes good, but the sweetness of the oats overtakes any flavour lent by the almonds. It also takes focus away from the coffee, which is a shame. 2.5/5 Sproud Barista At first sip, this is wonderful and complements the coffee beautifully. The oat and coffee pair well together and it’s delightful. When I started as a barista in 2011, the only plant based milk available was soy milk. Today the situation is totally different. Oat, almond and coconut milks (and many more) have entered the market and have brought options for our non-dairy coffee enthusiasts. I’m not a big fan of any sorts of milk in my coffee but that’s even more reason to test these vegan bad boys and see which one of the plant based milk is the king for a barista. I know nothing (insert Game of Thrones joke here) about chemistry so I took our New Product Development Manager Mari with me who is expert with chemical compounds. I tested the plant based “milks” as a barista and Mari explained me why and how something was happening. For companies making multiple kinds of barista milks, I chose only one, recommended to me by the brand itself for this review. I used a small French press for the tests, as many households don’t have access to espresso machines or electric frothers. Here’s our ultimate showdown for the UK’s best barista milk. Frothing

However, just like the previous taste test, the oat milk’s distinct characteristics quietly dominate the coffee. But this is very creamy in mouthfeel, more so than any of the other milks in this test. 4/5 Oaty Bruce However, since the foam doesn’t blend too well with the liquid, the drinking experience is disturbed. 3.5/5 Read our guide to the best almond milk brands in the UK. Alpro Barista Coconut Making coconut milk cold foam is very easy, and it makes for one amazing cup of coffee. Ingredients RequiredThe milk itself is very white in colour and has a strong hemp aroma. Out of all the barista milks in this review, Good Hemp takes the longest to settle and is the best plant-based milk for frothing. 5/5 Happy Happy Soy Boy Provamel, like Alpro, is owned by Danone. Its barista oat milk, like Alpro’s, uses pea protein, which the brand says is added “to help it foam”. This being almond milk, I was curious to see whether it splits in the coffee, but this doesn’t, which I’m guessing is owed to the presence of oats. This mixes well with the coffee and makes for a homogenous blend. We took 12 of the best barista milks in the UK market and tested them in various ways to see which would win the ultimate barista milk showdown. While it makes for a nice drink, it is highly watery in texture, even with the double amount of oats in the milk. 3/5 Provamel Barista Oat