4 days Ago By Vita Molyneux
Oat milk has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity over the last few years, and now almost every coffee shop you visit will serve it - and every second customer is ordering it. I myself am an avid oat milk enthusiast and have been drinking it exclusively for a number of years. However, when I moved from New Zealand to London last year and continued pouring my oat milk into my coffee as per usual, I noticed something odd.
My oat milk was splitting when it came into contact with hot coffee, taking on a weird curdled appearance and making my morning beverage undrinkable. Baffled by this, I got in touch with my personal favourite oat milk brand Oatly to ask what on earth was happening - and how I could fix it. Toby Weedon, the barista development manager at Oatly, was more than happy to help me with my problem.
He said: “There are a number of reasons why oat drink might split in coffee, but the main two causes will be acidity and temperature. Freshly brewed, high quality, light roasted, filter coffee is one of the biggest challenges for plant milks, as the shock in temperature change and the acidity can cause oat drink to split or curdle.” This explained a lot - I’m partial to a light roast, always fresh, and, when I can afford it, high quality.
“Pouring steamed plant milk into an espresso brewed with light roasted coffee is also challenging, due to the acidity, and can leave a thick shaving foam like layer sitting on the top of the coffee," said Weedon added. It’s not just Oatly that has this issue - it’s an historical issue for all plant milks when combined with most coffees. He added: “Oatly was the first commercially available plant milk which included technology to regulate acidity to improve stability in coffee, meaning that for most coffee types Oatly Barista Edition performs as well as cow’s milk, with a much lower carbon footprint, and in my opinion tastes much better!” However, this doesn't mean it’s faultless.
As I’ve learned from several spoiled coffees, it can still struggle. Luckily, Weedon was happy to share his tricks of the trade with me. He said: “For filter coffee, try warming Oatly Barista Edition, and aerating using a handheld milk frother, to minimise the temperature shock of combining hot coffee and cold Oatly.
“For espresso-based coffee, try adding a splash of cold Oatly Barista Edition to the espresso and swirling it in (we call this tempering) to start to buffer the espresso and increase the pH slightly before pouring in the steamed Oatly Barista Edition.” Oatly can also be used for cooking and baking. For the dairy sensitive among us, or even if you just prefer the taste, it can be substituted for dairy milk in things like pancakes, bechamel or anything you can think of.
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