We tasted and ranked 7 different types of dairy and non-dairy milks. Oat milk came in dead last.

• The alt-milk wars have been going on for quite some time now, but only within the past couple of years has oat milk joined the battle over shelf space.
• Walk down the dairy aisle of your local supermarket and you’ll probably see a number of “milk” drinks that aren’t actually dairy at all – like soy “milk,” various kinds of nut “milk,” and other plant-based options – right next to the old fashioned cow milk.
• There are plenty of reasons why someone may choose a dairy-free option over the dairy-based classics – like allergies or other medically-backed dietary restrictions – but there are also people who like the health benefits of one more than the other or try to choose the option that is best for the environment.
• We conducted a blind taste test of seven different types of milk – including dairy and non-dairy varieties – to see which ultimately tastes the best. They were: organic whole milk, lactose-free 2% milk, organic 1% milk, skim milk, soy milk, almond milk, and oat milk.
• After drinking them all straight-up, splashed into coffee, infused with Fruit Loops, fried into French toast, and steamed by a barista, we couldn’t actually pick one overall winner, though we did pick one for each round of tasting.
• But we were able to pick an overall loser, which, to our complete surprise, was oat milk, the alt-milk beloved by millennials.
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There are so many different dairy milk and dairy milk alternative options on the shelves today that we decided to put seven of them to the test — or more specifically, a taste test.

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Of course, we couldn’t just judge based on how they taste when sipping straight from the carton — although, that wouldn’t be an unrealistic way to judge …

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… so we picked five popular ways of consuming milk that each give their own experience. We tried them as just a stand-alone cup of milk, in a bowl of cereal, mixed with coffee …

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… fried into French toast …

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… and steamed.

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Each milk drink was assigned a number: 1. organic whole milk, 2. lactose-free 2% milk, 3. organic 1% milk, 4. skim milk, 5. soy milk, 6. almond milk, and 7. oat milk.

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All of our willing participants went into the tasting blind — which means they only knew which number they were tasting, not which varietal of drink.

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We started off with the plain cup of milk. Ranking criteria for this category included color, smell, viscosity, taste, and willingness to drink it again.

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When it came to simply enjoying a glass of milk, the whole milk and the lactose-free 2% milk were the winners.

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Most tasters said the color on both of these cow milk options was near “beautiful” and the viscosity of them was average — it wasn’t so thick that it was gross, and it wasn’t so thin that it was watery.

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While both milks ranked highly in several tasting categories, the organic whole milk reigned supreme. It had an appetizing color, a tolerable smell, and a “true milk taste.” All five tasters said they would drink it again.

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When it came to the 2% lactose-free milk, tasters thought it was full-fat dairy milk. They said it looked even “creamier” than the whole milk. While two people said it didn’t really have a smell …

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… others disagreed. Two tasters said it smelled sour, with one writing its odor was “reminiscent of the point in a carton’s lifespan in which you’re unsure if you should drink it or not.” Another compared the smell to “stinky cheese.”

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As opposed to the whole milk’s unanimous “yes,” only three out of five tasters said they would drink the lactose-free milk again.

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Milk drink No. 3 was a 1% milkfat, organic dairy milk, which did fairly well with tasters.

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Tasters thought the color on this one was fairly neutral with one person writing, “Typical milk color with a watery light yellow undertone.”

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When it came to the smell and viscosity, most people thought the drink was average, with virtually no smell and average viscosity.

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Interestingly, one person wrote that they thought the 1% milk had a “thicker, fuller milk taste,” while another person wrote that it seemed “creamier” than the whole and 2% milks.

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Milk No. 4 was an enriched fat-free, or skim, milk.

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The skim milk gave a good first impression — tasters said it had “a beautiful ivory color to it” — but most tasters said it smelled pretty bad.

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Two tasters said it smelled rotten or near rotten. One wrote, “It’s like four-days-in-the-fridge too long.”

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But one taster actually liked the smell. They wrote, “Smells like Cookies ‘n’ Cream Hershey’s bar. Love it!” This person was also the only taster to say they would drink milk No. 4 again — everyone else gave it a hard no.

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Milk No. 5 was a dairy alternative: soy milk.

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One taster wrote that the color looked like “milk that was poured onto a dirty sidewalk and scooped back into the carton. It looks like what you’d expect from a nut milk.”

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But when it came to the odor, all tasters agreed that the soy milk had a pleasant and sweet smell reminiscent of cotton candy or vanilla ice cream.

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However, after tasting it, most people said they wouldn’t drink it again. They wrote that they were “Surprised by the taste” in the worst way: “So bad. So thick. I’m gagging. Tastes like there is cardboard in my milk.”

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Next up was the Almond Breeze almond milk. It left a pretty bad first impression with tasters when they examined the color.

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All tasters agreed there was a strange color here. One thought it looked purple, while another described it as having a “gray, dull tint.” But when it came to smell, it was a unanimous two-thumbs-up — no one thought it had a distinct smell.

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After giving it a try, most tasters thought it was on the thicker side — only one said they would drink it again and ranked it their favorite so far. The almond milk’s taste got mixed reviews — one taster wrote that they “could see this being good in coffee but not on its own,” while another predicted it “would taint any cup of coffee.”

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Before the tasting, we predicted that the oat milk drink would be the best overall, mostly due to the hype it’s generated on the internet. But it was actually the worst.

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On a scale of 1 (labeled “Ew”) to 5 (labeled “Beautiful”), every taster ranked the oat milk drink as “Ew.” Comments ranged from “If the last one’s color scared me, this one was perhaps even more unappealing.”

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Tasters wrote that it had a tint of green in the coloring that made it look like “you rinsed lettuce with it, put it in a salad spinner, and was subjected to drinking it.” They also said it looked gray, as if “someone mixed putty with cement and some water” to make it.

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On a scale ranging from 1 (labeled “Rotten”) to 5 (labeled “Yummy”) Oatly’s stench raked in mostly rotten ratings — two people gave it a neutral score. While two tasters said there was no distinct smell, there were three very offended noses in the room: “It smelled like an old arts and crafts drawer with notes of paste and Play-Doh.”

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Thoughts on viscosity ranged from “somewhat watery” to “basically heavy cream,” but overall, the taste was unanimously unpleasant. Participants said it reminded them of “something you’re not supposed to taste. Like putty or something.”

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Others said it left “a weird taste in my mouth” and made them “self-conscious about my after-milk breath.”

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After tasting and examining all the cups of straight-up milk and alt-milk, we decided to see how each tasted in coffee, a common use for milk.

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The top-ranking milk drink for coffee wound up being one of the alt-milks — and incidentally, one of the lowest-ranking drinks for consuming plain: the almond milk.

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Tasters described it as having a tolerable — even enjoyable — amount of sweetness. Some said it tasted like ice cream or a coffee float and said they could see themselves drinking it every day.

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The worst cup of coffee we tasted was the one featuring the oat milk. While there are loads of online arguments that disagree …

Source: Man Repeller, Vox, The New York Times, TIME

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… our tasters said, “it’s so close to being really good but something about it just isn’t.” We thought it tasted “horrid,” like paste, and that the alt-milk masked the coffee flavor to the point where “it doesn’t even taste like a cup of coffee anymore.”

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One taster wrote: “It tastes unnatural, unpleasant, and something I’d never want to be subjected to again. It’s a confusing, thick, and murky drink that does coffee — no matter how bad it may be — a disservice.”

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Next, it was time to try the cereal. We used Fruit Loops because of their distinct, fruity flavor, their ability to affect the flavor of the milk they’re sitting in, and — of course — because they’re fun to look at!

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It was a close call, but ultimately the lactose-free milk and the soy milk tied for the winner of this category. While the lactose-free milk seemed to take on the flavor of the cereal best, the soy milk was the most delightfully sweet option.

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But, some tasters noted the soy milk’s inability to keep its texture: “It had a light viscosity, creating a weird runny contrast with the cereal and milk.” Another said it looked gross.

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The lactose-free milk didn’t seem to have that problem: “It has a thick enough consistency to hold its own with the cereal, but it also creates the ideal cereal-milk combination.”

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Although we thought the oat milk was less horrendous after eating it with Fruit Loops, the smell, taste, and color were all still strong enough to be a turnoff.

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We tasted some French toast next. The breakfast food was made that morning, so it was decently fresh.

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There was no unanimous winner or loser for this round. It was pretty difficult to tell the difference between the dishes, so if you’re making French toast this weekend, it doesn’t seem to matter what type of milk or dairy substitute you use from a taste standpoint.

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After all the drinking and eating, the four tasters who went into the tasting blind worked together to guess the order in which they tasted the milk and alt-milk — they numbered them from left to right. Tasters thought the skim milk was the first milk they tried and the lactose-free milk was the last.

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Even though we got some colleagues to weigh-in on the ranking, there was still one more important test that the milk drinks had to pass: We had to try the foam.

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If you’re a coffee-drinker whose habits include more than just drip coffee with milk, you understand that the type of milk used for your foamy treat is a decision that can have cappuccino-ruining consequences. And if you’re a pour-it-and-get-on-with-your-day customer, well, now you know the severity of the situation.

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We went to our local barista and ordered steamed milk in the five different varieties they had on offer: whole, skim, almond, soy, and oat.

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Each of these steamed milk and alt-milk options had very distinct pros and cons. The first thing we noticed was how each drink reacted to being steamed in the first place — sometimes the foam head would separate completely from the hot milk underneath like the oat and soy milks …

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… and sometimes it was a beautifully smooth transition from one layer to the next, like with the whole milk.

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As cappuccino aficionados, we decided that from here-on-out, we’re ordering our favorite afternoon snack and nightcap with whole milk only. The way it flowed from layer to layer, kept the creamy integrity of the milk itself, and created a 1/2-inch-thick foam head with barely-there bubbles was truly stunning.

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If you’re opposed to whole milk, and you enjoy the taste of almond milk, that is the next best option. It really keeps the integrity of the almond milk taste and features a 1/2-inch-thick froth on top — it’s more of a bubbly froth than the whole milk’s airy foam.

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If you don’t like the taste of almond milk, then skim would be the next-best choice. It had a foam head closer to 1/4 of an inch thick and had a more noticeable transition when sipping through the top layer to the bottom, more liquid layer.

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The steamed soy milk separated into two distinct layers the fastest, but the taste was quite mild. The top layer was super frothy with tiny bubbles and closer to 1 inch thick — the thickest of all five. This was a no-go for us because of the separation, but if you want as mild of a taste as possible this is a fine, non-dairy option.

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Lastly, again, is the oat milk. It had the same flavor steamed as it did cold, and the 1/2-inch-thick head nearly stands alone from the hot milk layer underneath. The foam is made of bubbles slightly larger than those in the whole and skim milks, which makes for a slightly more stiff and airy residue.

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While we all expected to love oat milk solely because of the hype — just look at Oatly’s epic-ly cleaver branding …

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… and we do appreciate that alt-milk companies like Oatly are trying to “help the food industry become more accountable for its actions” …

Source: Oatly

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… after tasting oat milk five different ways, we determined that it is without a doubt the loser in this lineup.

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At the end of the day, we determined the best milk for steaming is whole milk, the best for coffee is almond milk, the winning choices for cereal are soy and lactose-free 2% milk, and the best for drinking straight is whole milk.