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View Full Version : Why does soya milk sometimes taste really bad?



mu-sly
Apr 3rd, 2006, 08:40 AM
Hi all - my first post here. :)

I was compelled to join in the hopes that someone else might have had the same problem: when soya milk just tastes plain wrong.

Without mentioning the brand, the soya milk I thought until recently was my favourite, has tasted like utter crap the last few times I've bought it. It's going from being absolutely perfect, to tasting like some kind of peat / fungus / metalic-ish sort of stuff.

Initially I thought perhaps it was just the shop I bought it from, so I bought the same brand from another shop. But now I'm on something like 3 or 4 of these cartons recently have just tasted utterly wrong.

It's quite an established brand which is non-GM and organic.

I guess the quick answer is: change brand. Unfortunately, it seems this particular brand has a bit of a monopoly (if you could call it that) going on in the small shops where I live, leaving my other alternative as trekking a bit further afield, and potentially going to the supermarket (which I generally try to avoid as much as I can).

There is another shop (a really awesome vegan deli) within walking distance, but I regularly seem to run out of soya milk at most inconvenient times - such late evening when only the little mini-market late shops are open. I guess I should be a bit more organised and buy in advance, but that requires planning and foresight... :eek:

Anyway, I can cope OK - am more than happy enough to change brand, and it's not like I particularly drink gallons of the stuff (just in tea, and occasionally on cereal). I'm also fine with drinking black tea, and being somewhat of a tea geek, I have a nice variety of teas around anyway, none of which actually require anything other than hot water to taste great.

So basically, I just wanted to find out if anyone else has ever had soya milk with this really nasty taste to it, or if anyone knows what on earth causes it?

Most annoying thing is that yesterday I poured one carton away, went out and bought another (same brand from a different shop), only for it to taste exactly the same. Maybe I'll email them and say "what the hell happened to the previously yummy taste of your soya milk?" and see if perhaps they've changed something. (Though really, it tastes so bad there's no way this could have been a deliberate thing.)

Further annoyance is that I'm not feeling very rich at the moment, and soya milk isn't the cheapest of food items. Kinda getting fed up with purchasing undrinkable duds. :mad:

Pob
Apr 3rd, 2006, 09:07 AM
Could it be you that has changed and not the soya milk?

Do you have a cold or are you eating different foods (eg lots of garlic)?

mu-sly
Apr 3rd, 2006, 09:11 AM
Nope, nothing like that. It has an actual smell of this whatever-it-is to it (though only slight), and I got one of my friends to confirm that I was indeed sane and not imagining the bad taste.

There really is something badly wrong with this soya milk - multiple people have confirmed it! (I suppose we might all be completely insane... that's a very real possibility, knowing my friends!)

Pob
Apr 3rd, 2006, 09:21 AM
Hope this isnt Granose - as they make all the soya milks I like.
I tasted Plamil for the first time the other day and that is nice, too. Its actually quite cheap as it has twice the beans of most other brands.

mu-sly
Apr 3rd, 2006, 09:30 AM
Ahh what the heck, I'll name it: Sunrise unsweetened.

It's the green carton on this page: http://www.soya-group.com/our_produts.htm

What's most annoying is that this really was my favourite one, and easily available in several of the local shops... and now it's suddenly started to taste like arse, for some unknown reason!

I can pick up some Alpro from the nice vegan deli easily enough, so it's not the end of the world.

dharma
Apr 3rd, 2006, 09:50 AM
Hi mu-sly, welcome.
It may be a bad batch. I used to buy a supermarket brand some years ago and had a lot of trouble with it. There was a sulphurous smell to it and turned out to be a problem with that particular batch. I've also had a few cartons of other brands that have been lumpy, but that was also quite a few years ago. I use Alpro now and haven't had any problems with it.

Have Sunrise changed the recipe? Sometimes 'new and improved' turns out not to be an improvement at all. Alpro soya cream changed recently and I'm not keen on it now.

aubergine
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:07 AM
I always buy Alpro because they do it everywhere.

I try to buy it from small stores if I can, but if I'm stuck at 11.30pm I know that Tesco always stock it.

snaffler
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:20 AM
I must out my hand and hold my head in shame that I am a supermarket soya milk buyer, but it is an organic one and it is around 70p a carton, but in our house you must bare in mind their ar two of us drinking it everyday including cereal etc. We could not afford to run on Alpro as much as we would like to though. The brand we buy is one of the few we really like though which is a bonus.

On another note we do now and again push the boat out and get some Alpro Choc Soya which is bliss :)

Pob
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:25 AM
I buy a non-organic one from supermarkets :(

Why can't they make an organic one and then add some vitamins to it? I do take vitamins, but I do think I need extra calcium and b12.

snaffler
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:29 AM
I buy a non-organic one from supermarkets :(

Why can't they make an organic one and then add some vitamins to it? I do take vitamins, but I do think I need extra calcium and b12.

I take vits seperate Rob (QG) it would be nice though. We only have ASDA or Sainsbury, the ASDA one is far nicer and Lord Sainsbury does not profit which is a bonus in my eyes. (I know the whole ASDA/Wallmark thing is an issue for many) but their CEO is not funding vivisection) so that overides my decision.

Cherry
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:34 AM
I've never tried the sunrise stuff. Seemingly a good thing :) Is it fresh soya milk or the UHT sort? Maybe you should just switch to something else for a few months and then see if it has improved.

I find a lot of soya milk tastes too chalky and/or watery, but I'm not too fussy. The only one I find repulsive is the co-op one with added calcium & vitamins. I don't know if they put more calcium in it than other brands but just the smell of it makes me gag. That's sort of metallic, but then it would be.

They've just started doing a 500ml one in my local health food shop. I can't remember the name of it but it's in a square blue carton. It tastes good, but weirdly has white floaty bits! Somewhat disconcerting when you're drinking your tea.

dharma
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:37 AM
I buy a non-organic one from supermarkets :(

Why can't they make an organic one and then add some vitamins to it? I do take vitamins, but I do think I need extra calcium and b12.
I think vitamins aren't added to organic things because the vitamins don't conform to organic standards.


On another note we do now and again push the boat out and get some Alpro Choc Soya which is bliss :)
Have you tried Oatly chocolate flavoured oat milk? It's less thick than the Alpro chocolate milk, but very nice.

Cherry
Apr 3rd, 2006, 10:43 AM
Some friends of mine make their own oat milk. Apparently you just leave oats in water and strain them off! Has anyone made it?

Chocolate oat milk sounds great, Dharma. That alpro one is thick, isn't it?! I have to add extra soya milk to it.

Russ
Apr 3rd, 2006, 11:49 AM
I use Alpro. It has a monopoly, but it is ethically sourced from what I hear. I've only ever had one problem. Once I woke up on a regular morning not expecting anything unusual to happen, opened the next bottle of Alpro soya to pour on my cereal and ... it came out in a lump. It was like double cream. So weird. I threw the whole thing away.

Rice milk is great, but it's more expensive ... has anyone ever tried Tiger White? It's more like water than milk, with white bits floating around in it. It's weird but addictive.

PS Lord Sainsbury is a bastard.

Tigerlily
Apr 3rd, 2006, 12:14 PM
I buy a non-organic one from supermarkets :(

Why can't they make an organic one and then add some vitamins to it? I do take vitamins, but I do think I need extra calcium and b12.

:p They make organic, non-GMO soy milk with added vitamins (calcium, Vitamin D2, and B12 and a little bit of others) here in North America...

Anyway, back on topic! How are you keeping your soy milk? I find mine tastes freshest when I keep it nice and cold in back of the fridge. If I leave it on the shelf in the fridge's door, it tastes weird (spoils quicker?). Are you consuming it within 5-7days? After a week, soy milk starts to taste funky, IMO.

Tigerlily
Apr 3rd, 2006, 12:59 PM
Also, are you buying your soy milk 'off the shelf' or in the cool case section?

mu-sly
Apr 3rd, 2006, 01:33 PM
Tigerlily - I'm barely keeping it at all. These are literally straight from the chiller section of the shop, which is about 2 minutes walk from my house. Straight home, into a cup of tea, and bleugh that horrible taste!

I always keep it in the fridge anyway, but these bad tasting ones haven't hung around long enough for it to be anything I'm doing to it.

I guess it's just a bad batch (and it would figure that both shops nearby have the same batch, since they probably buy from the same wholesaler) so I'm just going to give it a miss for a month or so, and try it again sometime.

But I was wondering if perhaps the shops are doing something wrong to it, probably before putting it in the chiller. Still, I know a vegan communal house with about 10 people living there, and they don't even have a fridge, and their soya milk doesn't really seem to suffer because of it (although each carton gets used up rather quickly, I guess).

Anyway, I think I've answered my own question: it's probably just some kind of anomaly, and a bad batch of late, which will hopefully resolve itself within a month or so.

In the meantime: Alpro, which is lovely anyway! :-D

puffin
Apr 3rd, 2006, 02:03 PM
I must out my hand and hold my head in shame that I am a supermarket soya milk buyer, but it is an organic one and it is around 70p a carton, but in our house you must bare in mind their ar two of us drinking it everyday including cereal etc. We could not afford to run on Alpro as much as we would like to though. The brand we buy is one of the few we really like though which is a bonus.


I have the same problem. There are 3 of us using soya milk and i go through a lot of it. I mix and match and try to get some alpro as well as the supermarket brand.

Smell
Apr 3rd, 2006, 02:57 PM
I really don't like Sogood soya milk. It just tastes horrible. The chocolate one is really good though =]

Alpro I love, but I don't like unsweetened as much as sweetened.

Russ
Apr 3rd, 2006, 03:30 PM
I didn't like So Good at first, it grew on me though. I can't stand that unsweetened Alpro, I had it with rye flakes once and it was about the most boring breakfast of my entire life.

Cherry
Apr 3rd, 2006, 04:03 PM
lol - on rye flakes?! I can imagine :D

I really like alpro unsweetened! It's my favourite sort (although it's so expensive I intersperse it with the supermarket ones too :o ) I like 'so good' too but it's a bit yucky in tea. I also feel slightly alarmed by the long list of ingredients in 'so good'. There's something nice about reading the label and it saying 'water, soya beans'.

tabitha
Apr 3rd, 2006, 05:42 PM
I really dont like SoGood at all. It was the first one I tried when I started the vegan thing and I thought "OMG - Im not going to be able to do this", it tastes so much stronger and you kind of smell it before you taste it. I use Alpro which is nicer and I dont even notice it now, except in mash potato and then its a bit rank and sweet.

friend
Apr 3rd, 2006, 06:27 PM
Sunrise is the only soya milk that i've ever had a foul taste off, i have always..going back 15 years tried to avoid it unless i'm desperate, as it usually tastes foul.

HarleyT
Apr 16th, 2006, 04:30 PM
I really dont like SoGood at all. It was the first one I tried when I started the vegan thing and I thought "OMG - Im not going to be able to do this", it tastes so much stronger and you kind of smell it before you taste it. I use Alpro which is nicer and I dont even notice it now, except in mash potato and then its a bit rank and sweet.

Yeah So Good is a very unique taste, it spoils tea or anything you try to add it to. It's really a drink it alone kind of drink. I think they should rename the product to, 'So Good as long as you don't add it to anything'. ;)

Alpro is nice but again it can spoil the taste of tea and coffee if too much is added. I think the best soya milk in tea is the plain boring unsweetened cheapo variety that you can get from most supermarkets. I think Sainsbury's is about 65p/l for their basics.

A nice one for coffee is Bonsoy, it's not the most environmentally friendly product as it's shipped from Japan to Australia and then imported into the UK. They add barley and I think it's a seaweed derivitive too it, sounds gross but it's absolutely spot on for a nice cup of coffee. Be warned it retails at £1.99/l so drink sparingly guys! :eek:

I use Sainsbury's Basics soya milk but I did go off it at one point. The first time I tried soya milk was CoOp's unsweetened version and it was so vile but that's when I first went Vegan, eventually my palate changed and they were really nice.

I really think the new unsweetened chilled Alpro is nice though, it's very smooth, did anyone see them when they first came out and it had a spelling mistake on the packaging? :confused: Instead of saying "Soya Light" it said "Soya Lines", I remember thinking, that doesn't make sense and shortly after they corrected it.

I think the best soya milk I've ever tasted was when I lived in America. They sell this brand called Pacific Soy, it was organic and gmo free I think. It was so beautifully flavoured, it was amazing, great just to drink by itself and good in coffee and tea. I wanted to be able to get it in the UK but when I emailed them, years ago, they said the import tax into the EU was so high it wasn't worth it. Bit of an excuse really, just look at Bonsoy!

Has anyone ever tried making their own soya milk? I have a soya milk maker but it always come out tasting a bit like chick peas, very strong. I heard that you have to buy special beans that are breed to take out the beany taste? Any suggestions on how to make it smooth tasting?