Today, we're going to be talking about plant-based milks,
dairy alternatives, specifically for coffee.
This is a project that I've been working on
for a few months now
and as a result, I obviously have a bias here.
I have invested interest in the success of this
and you should know that going in.
But I think there's some super interesting stuff
in the process, in the development of this
that I wanted to share.
So a little while back,
I was approached by a company called Rebel Kitchen.
They're a small UK based privately owned company
and they do plant based alternatives.
And they've actually done
plant based alternatives to dairy before,
but one's kind of a daily use
to put on your cereal in the morning, put in tea,
but but not something specifically for coffee and cafes.
Because when you bring coffee into it,
particularly espresso,
you bring a host of different challenges.
Once you bring it in steaming and texturing milk,
there are even more challenges
and overcoming those was really fun, was really interesting.
And I learned a bunch of stuff that I kind of wanna share.
Now, I've been interested like many people
in plant based alternatives for a little while now.
And there's a number of reasons driving that.
And that was one of the big motivations for me actually
to work on this project.
Now, from being honest,
historically speaking, go back five maybe 10 years,
plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy
weren't very good.
They didn't taste particularly nice,
they weren't particularly enjoyable
and they were chosen for a host of other reasons
outside of taste.
And I think what we've seen more of
in the last couple of years
is that people are willing to make a switch,
people are willing to consume plants over meat, over dairy
as long as it doesn't feel like a compromise.
People don't want anything less than a great cappuccino,
a great flat white.
And so that's been a big barrier for a long time
for people switching away from dairy.
Now, one thing I couldn't help but note
is that there are a bunch of dairy alternatives out there
but they seem like weirdly monogamous affairs.
It's oat and nothing but oat
or it's almond and nothing but almond
or it's soya, nothing but soya,
you get the point.
What actually appealed to me about this project
is that they wanted to look
at a much broader spectrum of plants
to chase down this no compromise alternative
that that definitely appealed to me.
Dairy milk is kind of amazing.
And at no point could I deny
that coffee plus dairy is delicious.
It really does taste wonderful,
a lot of people enjoy that combination of coffee's flavor,
softened by milk, sweetened by milk enriched by milk.
That makes for a lovely combination
enjoyed the world over, can't argue with that.
But there's more complexity to what milk is doing,
there's more challenge in the replication of that.
And there are two broad categories to worry about here.
You've got taste
and that's, how does it feel to drink,
how does it taste, what kind of flavors does it have?
And in the coffee world, you've got texture.
How does it steam, how does it pour,
how does it sit in the cup?
Does it last, does it fall to pieces?
These are two technically different puzzles
and solving one can unsolved another one,
that's the frustration of this whole deal.
Now it's very important in this video
that you hear from someone
who really, really really knows what they're talking about.
So I'd like to introduce you
to one of the food scientists from Rebel,
meet Zara.
Hi, my name is Zara.
I am the product developer for Rebel Kitchen
and today we're gonna be talking about
Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk. And to give you an idea
of how deeply immersed in this project she is,
I asked her pretty early on in the conversation,
how many iterations,
how many recipes they'd gone through
for this particular product.
I think there was like 146.
146? Yeah.
And that was probably the quickest we've done it.
Okay, let's talk some foam science.
When you steam milk, you are introducing air to it.
You're creating foam
and you're using the steam wand to drag air down
and push it in.
And then you're going to use the steam wand
to kinda whisk that foam down so the bubbles are so small
that they're pretty much invisible.
This requires something that foams
and lots of things can foam in these kind of situations.
Oat is a great addition for this particular thing.
But what you also need from a texture perspective
is not just this marshmallowy gooey foamy goodness,
you need some fat.
And fat's a bit of a problem.
Fat is one of the things that we really enjoy in dairy milk.
A lot of people like whole milk for that texture
and fat does impact flavor as well.
Fat inhibits flavor release a little bit
so you have a less intense cappuccino if it's full fat
but it does linger in the mouth a little bit longer.
A skim milk version would have a much more intense
sort of short burst of flavor,
but just wouldn't really hang around.
But fat also can inhibit foam formation
and certainly inhibit foam stability.
And that's the kind of push-pull in this kinda thing.
You want enough fat that feels very nice to drink
but not so much that it damages it
in terms of its foamability.
But there is one more role that fat plays.
And that's the viscosity of the whole thing.
When you steam milk,
before you pour that foamed milk into the cup,
you generally swell the pitcher
and this causes the liquid milk to be whisked
and sort of swirled back into the foam,
making the foam heavy enough that when you tilt the jug,
foam is dragged out with the liquid underneath.
And at that point you can pour latte art,
you can produce beautiful looking coffees.
If you didn't do that, then when you tip the jug,
a sort of dry raft of foam would sit back
and liquid would flow from underneath.
If your milk lacks that thickness, that viscosity,
it will be difficult to work with, it'll drain too quickly.
So making sure you've got that viscosity
is actually super important
from a practical technical perspective
when you're using the stuff behind a coffee bar.
And then there's one more little twist,
which is how does that firm hold up once it's poured.
And actually here, I think they did an amazing job.
In a bunch of testing the foam from this
outlast the foam from dairy milk
by quite a considerable amount.
It's kind of been weird for me to be drinking cappuccinos
and flat whites on the regular again.
I'd pretty much stopped for over a decade
for a host of different reasons.
And it's kind of fun coming back to this all again.
Now, one of the big things I wanted to talk
to Zara about for this video
was the ingredients of the end product.
You know, you look at the back of a pack
and there's a few different things there
and you might want to know why.
And so that's what I'll share with you now.
Me talking to Zara, going through ingredient by ingredient,
and getting some more explanation about the thought process
and the development process that went into selecting them
and getting them tuned to this particular recipe.
Okay, so first water, obviously second oats,
oats, oat milk seems very popular.
What's oat doing in this?
It's giving you a little bit of the body,
it's giving you a little bit of the texture,
it's helping kind of smooth everything out.
But it's also giving you a little bit of flavor,
little bit of sweetness that isn't overpowering,
it's not too harsh or too strong.
Obviously oat is a really popular ingredient
within the coffee space
because of its neutrality, let's say.
But we wanted to kind of take that but also innovate one,
one extra on that.
And that's why there's other ingredients in that too.
So the next one is interesting to me
which is coconut cream
'cause in tasting this,
at no point did I think it tasted of coconut.
But I associate coconut cream
with having quite an intense coconut flavor.
Coconut cream is actually a really, really lovely base
and we use it in our semi-skimmed and whole milk.
But we didn't put it in there
in too much of a percentage inclusion for you to taste it
'cause obviously it's quite a strong taste
and it could take away from the coffee.
It's gone really lovely texture, it's really velvety
and we found that actually it really helped with the,
the tightness of the micro-foam
and actually how velvety the milk ended up being,
but kind of getting that balance
without it coming through too much as a flavor
and just in there as a function
and mouthfeel kind of.
Next one is the sunflower oil.
This Actually came through when you were in
and you were testing our different milks out
and we were kind of trying to understand what was working
and what wasn't quite early stage.
And we found that actually it would have been great
to have even more coconut in there,
so you just add even more body.
But as you said, it comes through in the flavor too much
so we needed a secondary source of fat,
which is where the sunflower oil came in.
Just really lovely, organic,
pressed sunflower oil, not solvent extracted.
And it just gave it a little bit more texture,
a little bit more body
and it really helped with the mouth feel
and the velvetyness of it again in the micro foam.
So, yeah, that was a turning point 'cause we,
originally were just going to use the coconut
and we found actually it wasn't right for the product
and we needed to.
So the next one is a little interesting to me
which is fava bean protein.
The fava bean was a really interesting one.
We started off with hemp.
And we found that the hemp just gave too many flavor notes
to the product and it was just a bit too bitter
and it just took away
from the neutral profile we were going for.
So we found the fava bean
which was really lovely, organically grown in Finland.
And it's just kind of grown, dehold
and ground into a flower.
And it's got a lovely texture,
a lovely savory profile, just a hint of savory,
but really neutral.
And we were able to add it in there
at just the right balance to have it come through
but not be too overpowering to the rest of the profile.
Sunflower seed extract.
The sunflower seed extract is a really nice ingredient.
It actually just keeps everything bound together
and there are a lot of
sort of similar ingredients out there
which are quite harshly extracted with alcohols or acids or,
you know, just quite harshly processed.
But for us, we use one which is,
it's really lovely, it's water processed,
so it's super gentle
and it still does the same thing that you needed to do
but without being so harsh
and that's something really important for Rebel Kitchen.
All of our ingredients go through
a really, really extensive kind of approval process
to make sure, you know, is this factory or is this supplier
adhering to good environmental practice
and good ethical policies
and just around the farming of the product,
that's so important to us.
I mean, going back as, as much as we can
and getting all that detail.
Not only cause we're organic
but also because we're a B Corp.
So that's really important to us from a,
just a governing point of view too
to really know what's in our products
and really be sure of the quality.
'Cause if you start off with good quality ingredients,
I mean, you're already halfway there.
So nutritional yeast, I presume it's a flavor thing.
It's used in a lot of vegan cooking
to kind of give a bit of a cheesy note.
So obviously we're not putting it in there to taste cheesy
but it's just a touch
to give it a kind of savory dairy note.
So it works really well with the fava bean,
but it's in that such a low quantity
that you wouldn't necessarily taste it or detect it,
It just adds a slight dimension.
Potassium carbonate, which is a seam acting as a buffer
'cause you're dealing with coffee being super acidic
and that's often a problem.
Because we organic, we have really strict guidelines
about what we can and can't put in our products.
So from the ones that we were able to put in,
we tested them all out.
Some were great, some had a really quite bitter aftertaste,
quite saline after taste
and we found that actually
potassium carbonate was the most neutral,
but also gave it just enough kind of buffer,
just softened it enough
without taking away too much of the flavor.
Last one, the sea salt.
This was really a tricky one
because we were getting a lot of bitterness.
I played with like every ingredient, taking it down,
adding in a little bit more
and I just couldn't get rid of the bitterness at all.
And I thought, you know,
this is probably coming from the coffee.
Like I've tried everything.
And it was just a touch of salt
which actually takes away the bitterness, which is,
I know something you've touched on before as well.
Like it really works.
Until now it's live.
It's officially launched, it's out there in the world
and I'm excited about that.
If you wanna try it and hope you do,
but if you're curious,
there's a few different ways to do so down below.
There's a little giveaway,
you can enter down below, the Rebel are doing themselves.
If you wanna just try it in their store,
there's a discount code, which is Hoffman30
that gets you 30% of this in their store.
Initially it's available in the UK
and a few European countries.
It's coming to the US later in the year.
It'll probably be in Australia beforehand
and other territories as well.
If you've tried it, let me know what you think.
I would love to hear your thoughts,
your experiences drinking it and steaming it.
If you get so many positive and beautiful,
tag me in on Instagram, I want to see it all.
I would love to hear your thoughts,
I'd love to hear experiences.
I genuinely enjoy hearing your feedback on this one.
It's been a really enjoyable process.
So let me know your thoughts.
I really want that feedback,
I really wanna hear about your experiences,
so of Rebel.
I think they're definitely a company
that are driven to keep iterating and pushing this
and perfecting this in the future too.
So that should be a fun continuation of this journey.
But for now, I'll say thank you so much for watching
and I hope you have a great day.