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 a balanced taste with the espresso. Which oat milk or oat drink best meets these criteria? And which manufacturer is also transparent in production, CO2 footprint, and the declaration of ingredients?

We wanted to know exactly. 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 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 EU, it is not milk, but a milk substitute product. In this article, we use both oat milk and oat drink, as is common usage.

The results of the test series reveal some surprising insights. 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 evaluated?
• Sources and further links

Results at a glance

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

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

However, the absolute taste winner in cappuccino is the Barista oat drink from Mølk.

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

Frothing ability proved to be very good for many oat drinks. Only a few fell short. The frothing behavior of the very good drinks was too close 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 suits you best. In this sense, we invite you to browse through our results. We explain how we evaluated what in the individual chapters.

Taste Winner

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

In the chocolatey espresso, the cappuccino prepared with Mølk was 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 (tree nut). Despite a slightly 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 caramel-like, which suggests that the oat drink's own flavor contributes to this. The espresso itself does not have 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, 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 performed well, followed by Aldi Suisse and Lidl Barista Oat Drink in terms of taste. dm Oat Drink Barista and Lidl Barista Oat Drink took the top two spots in the blind tasting of pure and cold oat drinks. How was it evaluated?

Frothing Performance and Latte Art

Delicious milk is not automatically equally frothed. Only milk that froths well can then be used as creamy foam for latte art. Swiss Latte Art Champion 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.

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

The differences among the majority of oat drinks were so small that we can unreservedly recommend all barista oat drinks for frothing.

Very good milk frothing behavior

With 10 out of 10 points:

• REWE Bio + vegan Barista Hafer
• Aldi Suisse
• BioBio Hafer Barista Netto
• Alnatura Hafer
• Provamel Haferdrink Barista Bio
• Coop Karma Bio Haferdrink

9.25 out of 10 points:

• Mirgos V-Love Bio · Haferdrink
• Lidl CH/DE - Barista Haferdrink
• Beleaf Haferdrink Barista
• Natumi Bio Barista Haferdrink

Good milk frothing behavior

8.5 out of 10 points:

• dm Hafer Drink Barista mit Soja
• Minor Figures Organic Oat
• Gutsch
• Mølk
• Berief Bio Hafer-Soja-Drink 1l
• Rebel Kitchen BIO MYLK Barista

7 out of 10 points:

• Oatly Germany Haferdrink Barista Edition
• Alpro Barista Hafermilch
• Voelkel Haferdrink Barista

Medium frothing behavior

5.5 out of 10 points:

• Allos Hafer Barista

Sustainability and Transparency

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

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

Regarding transparency, we evaluated whether a Life Cycle Analysis was available, whether the origin of ingredients and nutritional information were accessible. In the area of sustainability, we considered origin, production, CO2 footprint, sustainability reports/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 particularly impress with comprehensive information about their products and their sustainability goals and claims. The same applies to Rewe and Berief, who share third place. Gutsch follows in second place, working very locally and maintaining 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 probably does not come from Europe.

The manufacturers claim to strive for local operations but often have to resort to products from other European countries.

The CO₂ footprint is well below that of conventional milk, at about half. The comparison data does not come from organically produced oat drink, but from Oatly. This also includes transport data from Scandinavia to supermarkets in Germany. This suggests that emissions from organically produced oat drinks grown and processed in "Central Europe" should have an even smaller footprint.

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

The method of ecological scarcity, which also takes into account land-use changes, acidification, and heavy metal pollution in addition to the "Global Warming Potential" and thus enables a more comprehensive consideration, 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 presents the difficulty that a weighting of the evaluated parameters must be carried out. However, this can hardly be done across the board, as different purposes must be evaluated depending on use and interest.

Those who enjoy fruity espressos will place less value on the taste of oat milk in combination with dark espressos. Those who also use oat milk for muesli will place more value on its performance when cold. We have decided to consider all evaluated criteria equally and used the average of the parameters.

The results of this comparison are as follows:

• With a price-performance score of 5.68, "dm Hafer Drink Barista mit Soja" leads the list, closely followed by "REWE Bio + vegan Barista Hafer" with a score of 5.60 and "BioBio-Hafer Barista Netto" with 5.33
• "Alnatura Hafer" also scores well with price-performance scores of 4.42.
• At the bottom of the list, we find "Coop Karma Bio" and "Beleaf Haferdrink 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. Cappuccinos with oat milk are now indispensable in many cafes. In our own cafes, 25% of all ordered cappuccinos are now prepared with oat drink.

Our test shows that numerous oat drinks now blend very well with espresso.

Especially in terms of frothing ability, manufacturers have made significant progress in recent years, and the barista editions we tested live up to their name.

The frothing ability is good to very good for almost all milks tested.

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 evaluated?

Sustainability and Transparency

Transparency Rating

We searched online for information about the drinks. We not only wanted to find out 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 inform yourself online beforehand, you should also be able to find these values on the websites and in the shops of the providers.

Unfortunately, for example, we could not find any information about the drinks in Lidl's webshop. Gutsch lacks the nutritional table, and Natumi lacks the ingredient list. 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 reported a footprint for their drink, but less detailed than Oatly, which reports different footprints for different markets. Migros gives a comparison value for its oat drink: The CO₂ footprint corresponds to 4 km of driving. This puts the footprint well into context. However, it is not possible to make a comparison with other manufacturers from 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 location of the production facility. For about half of the tested drinks, we could find at least information about the country of production on the website.

Sustainability Rating

While transparency assessed the availability of data, the sustainability assessment focused on the quality of the information provided.

We thought long and hard about how to deal with missing and vague data. The result was that we rated no information with 0 points, and in the case of unclear or imprecise statements, we always assumed the worse option.

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

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

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

We also did not study the sustainability reports and goals of the individual providers in detail but used them to get an idea of the status of each company.

We inquired about waste management within the company from the manufacturers. 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, non-EU foreign country
• 1 point for origin in Europe
• 2 points country of origin = country of distribution

Production

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

CO2 footprint (product) = 1 point

Sustainability report/goals = 1 point

Waste management in place = 1 point

Oat drinks from Beckum

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

It is not surprising that the ingredients and nutritional information for Rewe, Alnatura, and Netto are identical. Rewe and Aldi Süd name Soja GmbH as their bottler, while Netto names Berief as the producer. Berief's own oat milk is also part of the test.

Taste

Warm rating: Cappuccino

Six testers evaluated four different aspects of each oat milk. The harmony of espresso and oat drink, mouthfeel (texture, richness), aftertaste, and visual appearance were assessed.

The maximum score that could be awarded per aspect was 6 points. This resulted in a maximum total score of 144 points per oat milk (6 points per aspect multiplied by 4 aspects multiplied by 6 testers). However, since the full range of points is rarely exhausted in practice, the maximum score was reduced by 10% for presentation purposes. An adjusted maximum score of 129.6 points was thus set. This score corresponds to 100% of the realistically achievable points. A score of 88% thus corresponds to 114.1 points (88% of 129.6 points). To present 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 scale of 1 to 10.

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

Cold rating: Pure oat milk

In addition to evaluating the four aspects, the taste of the cold milk was also rated by the testers. Each tester 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. However, since each oat milk was tasted twice, each oat milk could achieve a total of up to 72 points.

As before, the maximum score was also reduced by 10% here to allow for a more realistic representation. An adjusted maximum score of 64.8 points was thus set. This score corresponds to 100% of the realistically achievable points for the tasting of cold milk.

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

Value for money rating

To calculate the value for money, we first determined the average of the ratings for each brand in the five categories: fruitiness, chocolatey notes, cold milk, sustainability, and frothing ability. The ratings in these categories were given on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the best result.

The value for money 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" one receives for each euro spent. A higher value means a better value for money.

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 the 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 the German Barista Champion 2024 and performed the cappuccino preparations with Barista Trainer Andrea Perin. Dario Pieber is the Swiss Latte Art Champion and was responsible for the consistent frothing of the cappuccinos in the Latte Art test.

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

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

Gabriela Blank, barista, HR administration KM, yoga teacher, co-founder of Rabbithole Basel

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

Nadja Schwarz, Q-Grader Robusta and Arabica, Wine Sommelier, Swiss certified Hôtelière-Restauratrice HF, Sensory Course Instructor

Philipp Schallberger, Head of Roastery Kaffeemacher:innen, Partner, Sensory, Former Judge at World Barista Championships and in the World Brewers Cup

Thanks to everyone involved for their cooperation, as well as the other supporters behind the scenes.