The best barista oat milk - the big comparison

Good barista oat milk makes a cappuccino better! The most important criteria for a good interaction between oat milk and coffee are frothing performance and creaminess, as well as balance in flavor with the espresso. Which oat milk or which oat drink meets these criteria best? And which manufacturer is also transparent in production, with the CO2 footprint, and in the specification of ingredients used?

We wanted to know for sure. To do this, we tested 20 oat drinks and had them tasted in a blind tasting by six baristas, roasters, tasters, and food technologists. The reigning Swiss Latte Art Master then subjected the oat drinks to a frothing and Latte Art test.

In this article, we use "oat milk" and "oat drink" synonymously. Oat drink is the formally correct term for oat milk. According to EU regulations, it is not milk but a milk substitute product. We use both oat milk and oat drink in this article, as is common usage.

The results of the test series reveal some surprising findings. To the chapters of the test series.

• Results at a glance
• Taste winner
• Frothing performance and Latte Art
• Sustainability and transparency
• Price/Performance
• Conclusion
• How was it rated?
• Sources and further links

Results at a glance

The best oat milk on the market is the one that fits your interests and criteria.

Across all the categories we established in our test, the oat barista milk from dm performed best overall.

The absolute taste winner in the cappuccino is, however, the barista oat drink from Mølk.

In the category sustainability and transparency, Minor Figures Organic took first place.

The frothing ability proved to be very good in many oat drinks. Only a few fell short. The frothing behavior of the very good drinks was too similar to each other to crown a single milk as the "best."

How did the various oat milks perform in the different categories? The summary shows this.

The best oat milk is the one that works best for you. In this spirit, we invite you to browse through our results. We explain in the individual chapters how we rated what.

Taste winner

And the winner is…. Mølk! In terms of taste, the German startup's milk stands out especially in combination with frothed milk. The oat drink took first place both with a strong-chocolatey espresso and with a fruity espresso.

In the chocolatey espresso, the cappuccino made with Mølk proved to be well-balanced. The frothed oat drink complemented the coffee well without overpowering it. The cappuccino was described as caramel-like, chocolatey, and nutty, specifically reminiscent of walnuts. Despite a somewhat dry effect in the aftertaste, the overall balance was good.

In combination with the fruity coffee, the oat milk showed similar properties. The cappuccino was creamy, nutty, and caramel-like, suggesting that the oat drink's own flavor contributes here as well. The espresso itself has no pronounced nutty or caramel notes. The fruity aromas of the coffee did not have the same presence as the notes of the darker espresso roast.

The texture of the oat milk was described as buttery, oily, and sticky, which when frothed and warm worked very well with the espresso. As a cold oat drink, Mølk also placed fourth, with some tasters describing the oily note as too intense and slightly artificial.

The barista oat milk from dm also performed well, with Aldi Suisse and Lidl Barista oat drink following in taste with their oat drinks. dm oat drink barista and Lidl barista oat drink took the top two places in the blind tasting of pure and cold oat drink. How was it rated?

Frothing performance and Latte Art

Delicious milk is not automatically equally frothable. Only well-frothable milk can then be used as creamy foam for Latte Art. Swiss Latte Art Master Dario Pieber therefore frothed each oat milk twice for us and poured it as a cappuccino with a heart. All oat drinks were used anonymously.

As a conclusion, it can be stated that almost all alternative milks used showed good to very good frothing performance. Six oat drinks received a perfect score. They could be easily enriched with air during the aeration phase, and very well homogenized during the rolling phase. The surface remained smooth during pouring, the contrast was good, and the surface was stable and bubble-free.

The differences among the majority of oat drinks were so small that we can recommend all barista oat drinks without reservation for frothing.

Very good milk frothing behavior

With 10 out of 10 points:

• REWE Bio + vegan barista oat
• Aldi Suisse
• BioBio oat barista Netto
• Alnatura oat
• Provamel oat drink barista bio
• Coop Karma Bio oat drink

9.25 out of 10 points:

• Mirgos V-Love Bio · oat drink
• Lidl CH/DE - barista oat drink
• Beleaf oat drink barista
• Natumi Bio barista oat drink

Good milk frothing behavior

8.5 out of 10 points:

• dm oat drink barista with soya
• Minor Figures Organic oat
• Gutsch
• Mølk
• Berief Bio oat-soya drink 1l
• Rebel Kitchen BIO MYLK barista

7 out of 10 points:

• Oatly Germany oat drink barista edition
• Alpro barista oat milk
• Voelkel oat drink barista

Medium frothing behavior

5.5 out of 10 points:

• Allos oat barista

Sustainability and transparency

When evaluating the sustainability and transparency of oat drinks, we did not make a comparison to Kuhmilch but rather worked out a direct comparison among themselves. In direct comparison between oat drink and milk, the oat drink typically performs better (see WWF study as PDF).

(We also have two articles <1> <2> and one Dok-Film about cow's milk. If you want to know more about milk.)

In terms of transparency, we evaluated whether a Life Cycle Analysis is available, whether the origin of the ingredients and nutritional information are accessible. In terms of sustainability, we considered origin, production, CO2 footprint, sustainability reports and goals, and waste management. For this, we not only researched online but also contacted manufacturers and took their responses into account.

Result of sustainability and transparency

Minor Figures achieved the most points. As a B-Corp company, they can particularly score with comprehensive information about their products and their sustainability goals and ambitions. The same applies to Rewe and Berief, who share third place. Second place is followed by Gutsch, who work very locally and maintain close relationships with their producers.

What statements can we make?

Basically, all oat drinks are grown and produced in Europe. Only Rebel Kitchen's Mylk contains "Coconut Cream," which likely does not come from Europe.

According to their own statements, manufacturers strive to work as locally as possible, but often have to rely on products from other European countries.

The CO₂ footprint is well below that of conventional milk, namely about half. The comparison data do not come from an organically produced oat drink, but from von Oatly. This also takes into account transport data from Scandinavia to the supermarket in Germany. This suggests that emissions from organically produced oat drinks grown and processed in "Central Europe" would have an even smaller footprint.

Some of the products are labeled as climate neutral, which means emissions are recorded and offset. However, since it is not known exactly which emissions occur during the production of the beverage, we did not take these into account.

The method of ecological scarcity, which in addition to "Global Warming Potential" also considers land use change, acidification, and heavy metal pollution, thus allowing for a more comprehensive assessment, can also confirm this. The difference is not as pronounced as with CO2e, but aber oat still has a clear advantage.

Price/Performance

A classification of the price-performance ratio of the various oat milks presents the difficulty that a weighting of the evaluated parameters must be performed. However, this can hardly be done as a blanket approach, since different purposes depending on use and interest need to be evaluated.

Those who like to drink fruity espressos will place less value on the taste of oat milk in combination with dark espressos. Those who like to use oat milk for granola place more value on performance in cold condition. We decided to view all evaluated criteria as equally important and used the average of the parameters.

The results of this comparison are as follows:

• With a price-performance score of 5.68, "dm oat drink barista with soya" leads the list, closely followed by "REWE Bio + vegan barista oat" with a score of 5.60 and "BioBio-oat barista Netto" with 5.33
• "Alnatura oat" scores well with price-performance scores of 4.42
• At the bottom of the list we find "Coop Karma Bio" and "Beleaf oat drink barista" with price-performance scores of 1.61 and 1.49 respectively.

Conclusion

Oat drinks and alternative milks are becoming increasingly important alongside the home espresso machine. The cappuccino with oat milk is no longer a rarity in many cafés. In our own cafés, 25% of all ordered cappuccini are now prepared with oat drink.

Our test shows that numerous oat drinks now work very well in combination with espresso.

Especially in terms of frothing ability, manufacturers have done a lot of work in recent years, and the barista editions we tested live up to their name.

Frothing ability is good to very good in almost all tested milks.

In terms of sustainability and transparency, there is a wide gap between exemplary and deficient. There is still room for improvement with all manufacturers.

How was it rated?

Sustainability and transparency

Transparency assessment

We searched online for information about the drinks. We not only wanted to learn about the ingredients and nutritional values, but also more about the sustainability and origin of the drinks and their components. It is clear that ingredients must be listed on the packaging. But if you want to find out online in advance, you should also find these values on the websites and shops of the providers.

Unfortunately, we could not find any information about the drinks in Lidl's webshop, for example. Gutsch is missing the nutritional information table, and Natumi is missing the ingredient list. Otherwise, all information was available.

However, information about origin, production, and LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is less easy to find. Only Oatly has published a LCA here. Minor Figures has listed a einen footprint for their drink, but less detailed than Oatly, which lists different footprints for different markets. Migros provides a comparative value for its oat drink: The CO₂ footprint corresponds to 4 km of car driving. This puts the footprint in good context. However, it is not possible to make a comparison with other manufacturers from this, so Migros does not receive a point in this area.

Additional points in this area could be collected through information about the origin or location of the production facility. For about half of the drinks tested, we were able to find at least information about the country of production on the website.

Sustainability assessment

While transparency assessment evaluated the availability of data, the focus of sustainability assessment is on the quality of the information provided.

We spent a long time thinking about how to handle missing data and vague data. The result was that we did not rate missing information with 0 points and in the case of unclear or imprecise statements, we based our assessment on the worse option.

For example: Statements were often made such as: "We source our ingredients from local farmers. However, as demand increases, we must resort to, for example, oats from the EU." In such a case, "Europe" was applied for origin.

For published footprints, we rated them as existing if they are smaller than the footprint of milk* (1.36 kg CO2e /L).

We took various certifications into account in the production of the drinks, including Bioland, Naturland, Bio-Knospe, and Demeter. Each of these certifications has additional restrictions on the use of additives and cultivation practices. However, we did not particularly highlight any specific method, as examining this would exceed the scope of the work. A separate study would be needed for this. However, we rated all certifications that have additional restrictions beyond EU-Organic more highly.

We also did not study the sustainability reports and goals of individual providers in detail, but used them to get a picture of where each company stands.

We asked manufacturers about their handling of waste in the company. There were many interesting answers about what is done with the different waste products. From reusable shipping packaging to feeding oat residues to pigs, there were different approaches and solutions.

Origin

• 0 points, not EU-foreign
• 1 point for origin in Europe
• 2 points producer country = distribution country

Production

• 0 points conventional
• 1 point EU-Organic
• 2 points Bioland | Naturland | Bio-KnospeCH | Demeter

CO2 Footprint published = 1 point

Sustainability report/goals = 1 point

Waste management in place = 1 point

Oat drinks from Beckum

In our research, we noticed that many manufacturers produce their drinks in Germany/North Rhine-Westphalia or specifically in Beckum. Berief is based there and two minutes' walk away sits Soja GmbH, which shares a managing director with Berief. (As of summer 2023)

It is not surprising that Rewe, Alnatura, and Netto both have the ingredients and nutritional information table in common. Rewe and Aldi Süd name Soja GmbH as their filler, while Netto names Berief as the producer. Although Berief's own oat milk was also part of the test.

Taste

Warm assessment: Cappuccino

Six test persons evaluated four different aspects of each oat milk. Harmony of espresso and oat drink, mouthfeel (texture, weight), aftertaste, and visual appearance were assessed.

The maximum score that could be awarded per aspect was 6 points. This resulted in a maximum achievable total score of 144 points per oat milk (6 points per aspect multiplied by 4 aspects multiplied by 6 test persons). However, since in practice the entire point range is rarely exhausted, the maximum score was reduced by 10% for presentation purposes. Thus, an adjusted maximum point total of 129.6 points was established. This score corresponds to 100% of the realistically achievable points. A score of 88% therefore corresponds to 114.1 points (88% of 129.6 points). To display the ratings on a scale of 1 to 10, the percentage values were divided by 10. Thus, a rating of 88% corresponds to a score of 8.8 on the 1 to 10 scale.

This approach was applied both with a fruity espresso and with a classic and darker espresso roast ("chocolatey").

Cold assessment: Pure oat milk

In addition to assessing the four aspects, the taste of the cold milk was also assessed by the test persons. Each test person could award up to 6 points, with 6 being the highest and 0 being the lowest score. This resulted in a maximum total score of 36 points per tasting. However, since each oat milk was tasted twice, each oat milk could achieve a maximum of 72 points total.

As before, the maximum score was reduced by 10% here as well to allow for a more realistic presentation. Thus, an adjusted maximum point total of 64.8 points was established. This score corresponds to 100% of the realistically achievable points for the cold milk tasting.

The highest-rated oat milk achieved 46 points in this area. To display this on a scale of 1 to 10, the score achieved was first converted to a percentage (46 out of 64.8 points is about 71%) and then divided by 10. Thus, the best oat milk received a rating of 7.1 on the 1 to 10 scale for the taste of cold milk.

Price-performance assessment

To calculate price-performance, we first calculated the average of the ratings for each brand in the five categories of fruitiness, chocolatey quality, cold milk, sustainability, and frothing ability. The ratings in these categories were given on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best result.

Price-performance was then calculated by dividing the average of the ratings by the price of the respective oat milk. The resulting value gives an impression of how much "quality" or "value" you get for each euro spent. A higher value means a better price-to-performance ratio.

Sources, Further Links, Notes

*https://www.wwf.ch/sites/default/files/doc-2020-10/2020_10_%C3%96kobilanz%20Milch%20und%20pflanzliche%20Alternativen.pdf

Philipp Schallberger is co-founder of Gutsch. He was not involved in the evaluation or development of the test criteria. The tasting was conducted blind. No taster knew at any time which milk they were tasting.

Thanks and team

The oat milk test was prepared by Tobias Milz and Felix Hohlmann. Tobias Milz is an environmental technologist and regularly writes about his research on coffee and sustainability on our website. Felix Hohlmann is German barista master 2024 and carried out the preparation of the cappuccini with barista trainer Andrea Perin. Dario Pieber is Swiss Latte Art Master and was responsible for consistent frothing of the cappuccini in the Latte Art test.

The sensory panel consisted of the aforementioned Tobias Milz and, from right to left:

Pascal Rutz, pastry chef, barista and founder Brootmacher:innen

Gabriela Blank, barista, personnel administration, yoga instructor, co-founder Rabbithole Basel

Nicolas Schwob, food scientist, co-founder Rabbithole Basel, R&D Vito

Nadja Schwarz, Q-grader Robusta and Arabica, wine sommelier, Swiss certified hotel manager-restaurateur HF, sensory course director

Philipp Schallberger, head of roastery coffee makers, partner, sensory, former juror at World Barista Championships and World Brewers Cup

Thanks to all involved for their collaboration, as well as the other supporters in the background.