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 foaming performance and creaminess, as well as balance in flavor with the espresso. Which oat milk or oat drink meets these criteria best? And which manufacturer is also transparent about production, the CO2 footprint, and the ingredients used?

We wanted to know exactly. To find out, 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 Champion 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 the EU, it is not milk, but a milk substitute product. In this article, we use both oat milk and oat drink, as corresponds to general usage.

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

• Results at a glance
• Taste winners
• Foaming 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, the Barista Oat Milk from dm performed the best in our test.

However, the absolute taste winner in a cappuccino is the Barista Oat Drink from Mølk.

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

The frothing ability proved to be very good for many oat drinks. Only a few fell behind. The frothing behavior of the very good drinks was too similar to choose one 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 suits you best. In this spirit, we invite you to browse through our results. We explain how we rated what in the individual chapters.

Taste winners

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

In the chocolatey espresso, the cappuccino prepared with Mølk proved to be balanced. The frothed oat drink complemented the coffee well without overpowering it. The cappuccino was described as caramelly, 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 characteristics. The cappuccino was creamy, nutty, and caramelly, which suggests that an inherent flavor of the oat drink also contributes to this. The espresso itself does not have pronounced nutty or caramelly 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, went very well with the espresso. As a cold oat drink, Mølk also took fourth place, although some tasters described the oily note as too intense and slightly artificial.

The Barista Oat Milk from dm also showed a good performance, with Aldi Suisse and Lidl Barista Oat Drink following in terms of taste. dm Oat Drink Barista and Lidl Barista Oat Drink took the two top spots in the blind tasting of the pure and cold oat drink. How was it rated?

Foaming performance and latte art

Delicious milk is not automatically equally capable of being frothed. Only milk that froths well can then be used as creamy foam for latte art. The Swiss Latte Art Champion Dario Pieber therefore frothed every oat milk twice for us and poured it as a cappuccino with a heart. All oat drinks were used anonymously.

In conclusion, it can be stated that almost all alternative milks used showed a good to very good frothing performance. Six oat drinks received full marks. They could be well enriched with air during the drawing phase, as well as very well homogenized during the rolling phase. Even during pouring, the surface remained free of smear, the contrast was good, and the surface proved to be stable and bubble-free.

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

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 Organic
• Coop Karma Organic Oat Drink

9.25 out of 10 points:

• Migros V-Love Organic · Oat Drink
• Lidl CH/DE - Barista Oat Drink
• Beleaf Oat Drink Barista
• Natumi Organic Barista Oat Drink

Good milk foam behavior

8.5 out of 10 points:

• dm Oat Drink Barista with Soy
• Minor Figures Organic Oat
• Gutsch
• Mølk
• Berief Organic Oat-Soy Drink 1l
• Rebel Kitchen ORGANIC MYLK Barista

7 out of 10 points:

• Oatly Germany Oat Drink Barista Edition
• Alpro Barista Oat Milk
• Voelkel Oat Drink Barista

Average frothing behavior

5.5 out of 10 points:

• Allos Oat Barista

Sustainability and transparency

When assessing the sustainability and transparency of the oat drinks, no comparison was made to cow's milk; instead, a direct comparison among each other was developed. In a direct comparison between oat drink and milk, the oat drink generally performs better (see study by the WWF as PDF).

(We also have two articles <1> <2> and one documentary film on cow's milk. In case you want to learn more about milk.)

As part of transparency, we evaluated whether a life cycle analysis is available, and whether the origin of the ingredients and nutritional information are available. In the area of sustainability, we considered the origin, production, CO2 footprint, sustainability reports or 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 scored the most points. As a B-Corp company, they stand out primarily with comprehensive information about their products and their sustainability goals and claims. The same applies to Rewe and Berief, who share third place. In second place follows 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 Mylk from Rebel Kitchen contains "Coconut Cream," which presumably does not come from Europe.

The manufacturers make an effort, by their own admission, to work as locally as possible but often have to rely on products from other European countries.

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

Some of the products are labeled as climate-neutral, which means that emissions are recorded and compensated. However, since it is not known exactly which emissions occur during the production of the drink, we have not taken these into account.

The method of ecological scarcity, which in addition to "Global Warming Potential" also considers land-use changes, acidification, and heavy metal pollution, thus enabling a more comprehensive view, can also confirm this. The difference is not as clear as with CO2e, but oats still have a clear advantage.

Price/Performance

An assessment of the price-performance of the various oat milks highlights the difficulty that a weighting of the assessed parameters must be carried out. However, this is difficult to do across the board, as different purposes must be evaluated depending on usage and interest.

Those who like drinking fruity espressos will place less value on the taste of the oat milk in interaction with dark espressos. Those who also like using oat milk for muesli place more value on the performance in a cold state. We decided to view all evaluated criteria as having equal weight 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 Soy" 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" also performs well with price-performance scores of 4.42.
• At the bottom of the list, we find "Coop Karma Organic" 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. A cappuccino with oat milk has become an essential in many cafés. In our own cafés, 25% of all cappuccinos ordered are now prepared with an oat drink.

Our test shows that numerous oat drinks now come into their own very well in interaction with espresso.

Especially regarding frothing ability, manufacturers have worked hard in recent years, and the barista editions we tested live up to their name.

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

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

How was it rated?

Sustainability and transparency

Transparency rating

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

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

However, information on origin, production, and LCA (life cycle analysis) is less easy to find. Only Oatly has published an LCA here. Minor Figures has shown a footprint for their drink, but less detailed than Oatly, who show different footprints for different markets. Migros gives a comparison value for their oat drink: the CO₂ footprint corresponds to that of driving 4 km by car. This puts the footprint well into context. However, it is not possible to make a comparison with other manufacturers based on this, and therefore Migros does not receive a point in this area.

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

Sustainability rating

While the availability of data was rated for transparency, the focus of the sustainability rating is on the quality of the provided information.

We thought for a long time about how we wanted to deal with non-existent data and vague data. The result was that we rated non-existent information with 0 points and, in the case of unclear or imprecise statements, assumed the worse option in each case.

E.g.: Statements were often made such as: “We source our ingredients from local farmers. However, with rising demand, we have to fall back on, for example, oats from the EU.” In such a case, "Europe" was applied to the origin.

For the published footprints, we rated it as present if it is smaller than the footprint of milk* (1.36 kg CO2e /L).

We took into account various certifications in the production of the drinks, including Bioland, Naturland, Bio-Knospe, and Demeter. Each of these certifications has additional restrictions regarding the use of additives and procedures in cultivation. However, we did not highlight any specific method particularly, as investigating this would go beyond the scope of the work. A separate study would be necessary for this. However, we rated all certifications that have additional restrictions compared to EU-Organic higher.

Also, we did not study the sustainability reports and goals of individual providers in detail, but used them to get a picture of what the status is in the respective company.

We inquired about waste management within the company from the manufacturers. There were many interesting answers here regarding what is done with the different waste products. From reusable shipping packaging to feeding oat residues to pigs, there were various approaches and solutions.

Origin

• 0 points, outside EU
• 1 point for origin in Europe
• 2 points country of production = country of distribution

Production

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

CO2 footprint VÖ = 1 point

Sustainability report/goals = 1 point

Waste management available = 1 point

Oat drinks from Beckum

During the research, it was noticed that many manufacturers produce their drinks in Germany/NRW or specifically in Beckum. Berief is based there, and two minutes' walk away is the Soja GmbH, which shares the managing director with Berief. (Status: Summer 2023)

It is not surprising that both the ingredients and the nutritional table match for Rewe, Alnatura, and Netto. Rewe and Aldi Süd name the Soja GmbH as their bottler, while Netto names Berief as the producer. Although the oat milk from Berief itself is also part of the test.

Taste

Rating Warm: Cappuccino

Six test persons rated four different aspects of each oat milk. The harmony of espresso and oat drink, mouthfeel (texture, heaviness), aftertaste, as well as the visual appearance were rated.

The maximum number of points 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 the entire point range is rarely exhausted in practice, the maximum score was reduced by 10% for the presentation. Thus, an adjusted maximum score of 129.6 points was determined. 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 represent the ratings on a scale from 1 to 10, the percentage values were divided by 10. Thus, a rating of 88% corresponds to a grade of 8.8 on the scale from 1 to 10.

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

Rating Cold: Pure oat milk

In addition to rating the four aspects, the taste of the cold milk was also rated by the test persons. Here, each test person could award up to 6 points, with 6 being the highest and 0 the lowest score. This resulted in a maximum total score of 36 points per tasting. Since each oat milk was tasted twice, however, each oat milk could reach a total of up to 72 points.

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

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

Price-performance rating

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

The 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 every euro spent. A higher value means a better price-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 a co-founder of Gutsch. He was not involved in the evaluation or the development of the test's criteria. The tasting was carried out 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 writes regularly about his research on the topic of coffee and sustainability on our website. Felix Hohlmann is the German Barista Champion 2024 and performed the preparations of the cappuccinos with barista trainer Andrea Perin. Dario Pieber is a Swiss Latte Art Champion and was responsible for the uniform frothing of the cappuccinos in the latte art test.

The sensory panel consisted of the aforementioned Tobias Milz as well as from right to left:

Pascal Rutz, confectioner, barista, and founder of Brootmacher:innen

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

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

Nadja Schwarz, Q-Grader for Robusta and Arabica, wine sommelier, federally certified Hôtelière-Restauratrice HF, sensory course instructor

Philipp Schallberger, head of Kaffeemacher:innen roastery, partner, sensory, former juror at World Barista Championships and in the World Brewers Cup

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