The Soy Latte Challenge

The question on my mind: What soymilk makes the best soy latte? The reason: a vegan friend is coming to the city for a visit. The objective: to find a soy or rice milk that creates a flavorful substitute for actual milk — something that will froth effectively and look and taste beautifully.

In the end, I tested three soymilks and one rice milk. I have ranked these according to their performance. #1 being the best of course. All prices are for a 32 oz. container.

1. Silk Organic Plain Soymilk $1.26 (on sale)
2. Rice Dream Original $2.39
3. WestSoy Low Fat Plain $1.69
4. Edensoy Soymilk Vanilla $2.69

1. Silk Organic Plain Soymilk
From the moment I opened the container and poured out a small juice glass, I could tell this soymilk would be a contender. It simply appeared smoother than the rest. I tasted it, and plain it had a pleasant milk-like quality to it. The real test though would come when I heated the soymilk to 140 degrees and made my latte.

As I usually do I pulled a double shot of espresso from my machine. The coffee was perfect — a wonderful crema encased my espresso. I then proceeded to froth the soymilk, in order this was the third and last soymilk I had tried. And it frothed wonderfully — it’s performance was even and dense. It may have been even better than skim milk, which is saying a lot. I mixed the soymilk, which had reached its ideal 140 degrees, and the coffee. The dense froth looked great in the cup. I tasted the results — and Wow! Silk soymilk tasted great. This was by far the best soymilk of all that I tried and I heartily recommend it when you’re making your own soy latte.

In addition to its great flavor, this soymilk was by far the cheapest of all four.

2. Rice Dream Original
This rice milk was the big surprise of the whole contest. In my own mind, I had judged rice milk to be an inferior substitute to soymilk. I was not expecting much from Rice Dream. The surprise being that this rice milk tasted great both in the glass and as a “soy” latte — or should I say rice latte. The rice milk was more expensive than two of the soymilks, and might not be the first on anyone’s list, but I strongly recommend it. It made a fine latte — both frothing nicely and tasting great.

3. WestSoy Low Fat Plain
West Soy has made a marginally tasty soymilk here. I think it would be okay by itself, but it did not perform well in the soy latte test. The frothing was substandard in my opinion. Like all of the lattes I brought the soymilk up to 140 degrees before mixing it with a double-shot of espresso. The taste was not great, and even had a slightly burnt flavor. Another strike against WestSoy is that the website listed on the package www.westsoy.com is no longer valid.

4. Edensoy Soymilk Vanilla
The Edensoy was the most expensive of all the soymilks I tried, and was the reason I started this soymilk challenge in the first place. I have always enjoyed Edensoy, but I think the vanilla flavor was too much for the perfect soy latte. The flavor I found to be quite unpleasant once heated. The plain variety of Edensoy may be a better option than what I found with the vanilla-flavored. Edensoy is also more expensive than other soymilks, which should inform your purchasing decisions.