Addendum: The Taste of Soy Milk

Many apologies for not writing anything new for a week. This week was spent travelling to London to visit family for the Easter tide and then...I honestly had nothing else to talk about.

HOWEVER, I had brought my soy milk home and decided to eat my most favourite of cereals: Cheerios. For some reason, among the tiny range of cereals in the Czech Republic, Cheerios can never be found. NOW, with Cheerios, the taste of soy milk is blatantly obvious.

It tastes like...stale water cream. It's not horrible per say, but with the first spoonful of Cheerios it's a shock. The obviousness of the taste then ebbs away. So it seems I accidentally discovered the best way to enjoy/consume soy milk: use it with muesli, and nothing else.

Discussion: Milk Alternatives

1) Oat Milk

I'm getting this one out of the way quickly as I didn't actually try this one. The reason? My friend tried it and said it tasted like porridge. I really don't fancy porridge-flavoured milk and I highly doubt it would mix well with my strawberry muesli.

2) Soy Milk

This is the obvious alternative. So obvious I bought it without thinking when lent began. The biggest complaint against soy milk is that it doesn't taste like milk. And here is when I make a shocking statement: I can't taste the difference. I really can't. If I try hard then...I guess I can taste cream in the soy milk somewhere? I dunno, maybe I'm just not that partial to milk? The biggest drawback to this milk as I can see is its price. Soy milk isn't commonly sold in the Czech Republic, so almost the only brand available is Alpro Soya.

It is a quality product, of course, but being priced at 60 koruna (crowns) or the equivalent of £2, makes this a luxury product to many. For a third of that price (in either currency) you can buy the same amount of organic milk. In the UK, there are at least competing soy dairy manufacturers, so UK consumers don't lose out so much.

3) Rice Milk

Unfortunately, the carton doesn't specify which kind of rice, but whatever. I bought this for 33 koruna (just over £1) from DM, a German chain of chemists that also sells organic products. It's god-awful. There's barely any flavour and the fluid itself is so thin and watery. It was easily coloured by the strawberry bits in my muesli, which also meant their flavour was drained. I was so happy when I finally used this up.

4) Soy Rice Milk

I guess the main difference between this one and soy milk is that soy milk uses the beans. I bought this from DM at the same price as the rice milk. It wasn't as viscous/'creamy' as the soy milk, but it wasn't watery either. It gets brownie points for not interfering with the muesli flavour; as for the milk itself I swear I taste a whiff of vanilla.

Of the three I've tried, my personal favourite is soy milk. No surprise there.