Experiments with the Soy Latte

So, I’ve got this friend coming for a visit. I’m taking him either to the Sanctuary (over 100 different beers including rare Belgian Ales) or to Martini’s for good mixed drinks depending on what interests him.

But in the interest of saving money, we may spend some time here at the Camden Mansion. And at home I make a mean cappuccino and a smooth latte. He seems to me to be more of a latte man, but here’s the problem: He’s vegan and I don’t think he drinks or eats dairy.

So in the interest of being a good host, I picked up some soy milk yesterday to experiment with: vanilla-flavored Edensoy to be exact. I ground some fresh coffee in my burr grinder, measured out 14 grams, and extracted a double shot. Now for the tricky part: I had the chilled soy milk in a stainless frothing pitcher and proceeded to froth the soy. It frothed better than I expected. It was not unlike skim milk in its performance.

I brought the soy milk up to 140 degrees, and made my latte. Okay, everything was going well up to that point. The espresso had a wonderful crema; the soy milk had frothed beautifully. And then I took a sip.

OH, GOD! It was nasty. The soy milk, which tastes great on cereal or in a glass by itself, tasted awful. Once it was heated and mixed with the espresso, something very bad happened.

Maybe my friend is not getting a latte or a cappuccino when he comes to visit. UNLESS, was it the vanilla flavor that did it in? Would another variety of soy milk work better? I don’t have time to test all the permutations so I’m going to rely on you, my reader, to help me out here. What would you use?