Taste Test: Best Oat Milk for Drinking, Foaming, and Stirring into Coffee
LOCATION: PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA • MAY 22nd, 2020
One of the biggest upsides to living in California has been the access to a variety of new foods. About a year ago, I noticed that I had developed a dairy sensitivity - a night of pizza or a bowl of ice cream suddenly left me feeling horrible and my skin would break out soon after. Cutting back on dairy heavy items wasn't a huge challenge for the most part, but the one place I kept failing over and over again was with my cappuccino. I continued to place my same order, forgetting in the moment that I shouldn’t have so much dairy and then drinking it anyways because oh, the foam! Oh, the smooth creaminess! Oh, the aromatic perfection of espresso meets milk!
The times when I remembered to order my cappuccino with a soy or almond milk alternative, I would stare longingly at my husband's full fat wet cappuccino aka a normal cappuccino. Both soy milk and almond milk lack the rich foaminess or smoothness of milk and frankly I can’t really stand the aftertaste of almond milk in my coffee. Either I was destined for a lifetime of sad cappuccinos or I was just going to keep ordering regular ones and deal with the consequences later.
Enter oatmilk. The first person to offer it to me was a barista at Blue Bottle Coffee in the Ferry Market Building the first time I visited San Francisco. Oat milk? You mean the thing I eat for breakfast? Well, since I like oatmeal enough to have it every morning ...sure, why not?
Two words: Life Changing.
It was creamy, foamy, and delicious. Everything I had been missing from my coffee.
If this seems overly dramatic, it is! But if you had been drinking sad cappuccinos for months, you’d be rejoicing too. I no longer looked at D's cappuccino with jealousy. I even stopped asking for a sip of his coffee. I could just close my eyes and enjoy mine, fully content. At this point, I’m not even sure I would stop ordering oat milk cappuccinos even if I no longer had a dairy sensitivity!
I would like to tell you that that was the end of the story, but then this post would be completely unnecessary. Sadly, not all oat milks are created equal. Some are so bad that I would rather drink almond milk. Since oat milk has become a staple in coffee shops and grocery stores across the nation, I set out to taste tested 6 different oat milks, from 3 brands, to see which was the best one on the market. I admit that initially I wanted to do a double-blind randomized control trial (hello pharmacy school), but decided against it since really I’m just a sample-size of one.
So keep scrolling for my full review of six different oat milks, find out which ones I highly recommend, and read about my testing methodology at the end.
Contenders with Comments:
The Original Oatly: Barista Edition (7g sugar added) - the flavor and consistency is rich, smooth, and creamy with a hint of sweetness. I would definitely drink this plain, ideally paired with a cookie. A thick fluffy layer of foam foams when put through the milk frother. This oat milk was made for coffee, it enhances the flavor with a subtle sweetness and oatiness.
The Original Oatly Oat-milk (full-fat, 7g sugar added) - similar to the Oatly Barista Blend, slightly less creamy and rich, but I would still drink it plain. Also foams a thick layer of foam, but not as dense as the barista blend. The sweetness is lost when heated and the taste becomes somewhat bland with a slight weird mouthfeel. However, you don’t notice once you add it to the espresso.
Califia: Oat Barista Blend (no sugar added) - smooth, creamy, with a hint of sweetness, and more oat-y in taste. I was very disappointed with how little it foams considering that it’s a “barista blend.” It foams less than its non-barista-blend counterpart! The hint of sweetness remained once frothed and it nicely enhances the flavor of the espresso.
Califia: Unsweetened Oat Milk (no sugar added) - this one was confusing because honestly I had been drinking it for weeks with my espresso before I tasted it plain. It’s creamy, but somewhat bitter and I think it’s straight up horrible unheated! However, once frothed, it produces a nice thick layer of foam and the flavor becomes neutral. It tastes good with espresso, but doesn’t really enhance the flavor
Trader Joe’s Oat Beverage (shelf-stable, 4g sugar added) - watery, bitter, and the worst in taste overall. This one is literally just water and hydrolyzed oats, less processed but not in a good way. This is pretty much what you would expect blended oats and water to taste like. However, I was surprised at how much the taste improved after being frothed. It produces only a little foam, but there is a hint of sweetness that appears and it didn’t make the coffee watery despite initial evaluation.
Trader Joe’s Oat Beverage (refrigerated, 9 grams sugar added plus xanthan gum) - rich and creamy, but thick and by far the sweetest. In addition to the sugar, the xanthan gum adds to the sugary taste and texture. This oat milk produces some foam when frothed and the sweetness definitely comes through when added to espresso. I don’t usually put sugar in my cappuccinos so this one was a little too sweet for me. It would probably be fine in a mocha or flavored espresso drink.
Foaminess Rating When Frothed: Oatly Barista Blend (5/5), Original Oatly (4/5), Califia Barista Blend (1/5), Califia Unsweetened (4/5), Trader Joe’s Oat Beverage Shelf-stable (1/5), Trader Joe’s Oat Beverage Refrigerated (4/5)
Conclusion:
The Original Oatly: Barista Edition was the clear winner for me, with the Oatly “plain” version as a close second. The flavor and consistency was most similar to dairy-milk and it had a nice body when added to coffee. The others I would recommend with caveats depending on whether you plan on drinking the oat milk plain or heated and frothed for coffee. Many of them surprised me with how much the flavor changed between drinking them cold vs. heated in a milk frother. I have no idea why this would be the case and if you happen to know, please leave me a comment!
What I Looked For:
With this test, I was looking for the best oat milk for foaming and mixing with espresso and also the flavor when drinking plain. The factors I considered were flavor, consistency & texture, foaminess, and the flavor with espresso. Overall, I was looking for a creamy, similar to dairy milk taste, and nicely foaming oat milk that would compliment espresso.
How I Tested:
I sampled the “original” or “barista blend” oat milk of each brand’s lineup. I included both types of oat milk that Trader Joe’s makes since they do not have a “barista blend.” Each oat milk was put through three rounds of tests: sampled cold on its own, heated in a Nespresso milk frother, and added to espresso.
*I have also previously taste tested Pacific Foods Barista Series Oat Milk and found it to be so syrupy sweet and frankly undrinkable that I opted not to include it here. They claim “no added sugar,” but I’m seriously giving them the side-eye.
