Testing Nine Barista Style Vegan Milks With a Pro
Do the oat milks deserve the hype? And what does “barista style” mean anyway?
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Not only are plant milks rapidly becoming common offerings in coffee shops, it’s now likely that a cafe will offer more than one type of non-dairy milk to choose from. Between almond, oat, soy, cashew, yellow pea, hemp (and more!), there are certainly plenty of options. According to research firm Mintel, non-dairy milk sales have grown in the US by 61 percent in the past five years.
Vegan milk typically doesn’t have the same fat, sugar, and protein content as cow’s milk, which often leads the non-dairy versions to seize when poured into coffee, sometimes even when first steamed by a professional. Still, perhaps you’ve noticed that your non-dairy lattes, cortados, and flat whites are getting creamier and richer. That’s thanks to “barista style” non-dairy milk, which are specially formulated to produce sturdier microfoam, the super-smooth milky foam that tops espresso-based drinks.
“Whenever we’re teaching people how to steam, whole milk is our number one go-to,” Raina Roberts, Coffee Educator at Partners Coffee told me when we met at Partners Manhattan Brew School. “However, I’ve worked with a lot of alternative milks. At Partners, we use almond and oat barista style milks.” Roberts explained that she’s also worked with classically formulated non-dairy milks, noting that they’re much harder to steam into microfoam than their barista style counterparts. Roberts presumes this because of water content (a regular vegan milk’s is probably higher), as well as a few extra ingredients that go into barista style milk.
Those additives in barista style milk, typically oils, gums, lecithins, and salts, produce tighter air bubbles that effectively alter the consistency of the milk, as opposed to bubbles that pop immediately. “Barista Editions are crafted specifically for coffee applications, including foaming and frothing,” Peter Truby, Vice President of Marketing at Elmhurst, a vegan milk company, told me in an email. “To accomplish this we only add one additional ingredient: a safe…
