When making a cappuccino you already use the tastiest coffee beans of course, but a large part of the taste is also determined by the milk you use for your cappuccino. Whether with milk or with a plant-based alternative. In this article, we would like to tell you what to look for in order to buy the best milk for your cappuccino.

First you can make a choice between animal milk or plant-based milk. For some, the choice has already been made because they are lactose intolerant or because they opt for a vegan lifestyle. If you do not fit into one of these categories, you can of course also choose a plant-based alternative to milk out of interest. In our coffee bar we have decided to serve only 1 type of plant-based milk. The plant-based milk we offer is an oat drink because we think it best suits the taste of coffee. When choosing animal milk, there are more options to consider than you might think in advance.

First we would like to discuss the options of animal milk. The first choice you can make is the choice between fresh milk and long-life milk, you can add raw milk to this. Let’s start with this last category right away. Raw milk is the purest form of milk, as it comes from the cow’s udder. This is first collected in a tank so that it cools down. Raw milk still contains all antibodies, proteins and bacteria. The taste of raw milk is full, creamy and layered. Raw milk stays good for a few days and is only available from the farmer.

After milking cows, the milk is heated to 72 degrees Celsius for at least 20 seconds. We call this process pasteurization. Pasteurizing the milk kills pathogenic bacteria in the milk, but the taste of the milk remains fairly similar to that of raw milk. Because the milk has been heated and bacteria have been killed, the milk stays good for about 2 to 3 weeks. The taste of pasteurized milk is full and creamy.

To make long-life milk from raw milk, the raw milk is heated to 130 degrees Celsius for a few seconds. We call this sterilization. The nutritional values of the milk hardly change compared to pasteurization, but the vitamins do decrease slightly. The taste of the milk, on the other hand, changes drastically because the milk has become so hot. Long-life milk tastes flat.

Fats occur naturally in milk. The milk fats are lighter than the rest of the milk and therefore float to the top. By homogenizing the milk, the fat globules become smaller and the fat adheres more to the rest of the milk. As a result, the milk has become 1 mass. The disadvantage of homogenizing is that it is more difficult to digest by the intestines. The more processing is done with the milk, the more nutritional values are lost.

In addition to the choice of fresh and long-life milk, you can also choose whole, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk. The differences between these variants is the fat percentage. Whole milk has a fat percentage of 3.5%, semi-skimmed milk contains 1.5% fat and skimmed milk has only 0.5% fat. The fats in the milk provide a creamy taste, the lower the fat percentage, the less full and creamy the milk tastes. Because the fat percentage decreases with semi-skimmed and skimmed milk, the other nutritional values increase slightly. There is 1 breed of cow that produces milk with a much higher fat percentage than the milk that you mainly find in the supermarket. This breed is the Jersey breed.

You can make foam with skimmed milk, semi-skimmed milk and whole milk. But the fat in whole milk ensures that the foam stays longer and more prettier.

Then all we need to do is explain why you want to use which milk in your cappuccino. The milk we recommend is fresh whole milk. In our opinion, the taste of whole milk is the best combination with coffee. The full creaminess of the milk combines excellently with an espresso. Each brand of milk also has its own taste. Try to taste the differences between the brands. We use milk that comes directly from the farmer. The milk is pasteurized and not homogenized.

There are more than enough milk alternatives; soy, oat, almond, pea, coconut and rice milk. They all have their own unique properties and taste. If you want to choose the plant-based alternative with the most similar nutrients, soy is the best alternative. This is very similar to milk.

The preference for plant-based milk is often based on taste. The 2 most sold plant-based milk varieties are soy and oat milk. However, not every soy or oat milk is the same. Here too (as with milk) each brand has its own taste of pant-based milk. Try tasting the differences in taste between the brands.

As mentioned earlier, oat milk is our preferred alternative to cow's milk. We think the taste of oats is best combined with coffee. If you want to use a plant-based drink for your cappuccino, you want to make a nice foam layer. Not all plant-based drinks are suitable for making nice foam. Then opt for a barista version of your favorite plant-based milk. Vegetable protein has been added to this variant so that your foam stays beautiful.

You have done various taste tests to find your tastiest (plant-based) milk, so you also want to get everything out of it to make the best cappuccino. When frothing milk, you want to heat the milk to a maximum of 65 degrees Celsius and you want to create a nice foam layer. You can use a milk frother for this or if you have an espresso machine you can froth your own milk with the steam wand of your espresso machine. After frothing, mix the foam and the milk well by swirling it together and then pour the milk into your espresso. Enjoy!