Milk varieties

mimmo124

Hello all,
         Its been a while for me to post and visit this forum, its good to see that it has grown and has welcomed some new members.

My latest post is in regards to milk. I have read back through some of the recent topics and came across a topic "Mocha Double Decaf Latte".

It discussed the use of or not use of soy milk by a certain Perth cafe, as he didnt believe it was in his best interests to do so.

I believe his main reason for doing this was that it was not worth the effort to keep soy on hand for every 'n'th coffee that he would make. This has its merits as it would be costly to keep a stock of soy that would only be useful for one coffee, as after it is opened it may go bad before the entire carton is used.

There was another good comment that by using soy, you would be able to have access to the 10 other mothers in that group who would only drink there if their freind could have soy, and hence cover any loss that the one soy coffee would bring.

What the point of this post is, is to acertain who out there carries more than two types of milk, ie milk and soy. Some cafes' i have seen carry, full cream, hilo/(Brownes makes a lable called 'capo' in western australia for cappucinos'), skim milk, full cream soy, skim soy.

Although it may win you 'some' sales, this practice i believe could become costly in most smaller establishments, unless that is your strategy, to differentiate your product line by offering as much as possible.

What are peoples thoughts and opinions on this.

regards
Domenic

CoffeeNazi

I personally, would only get basic milks. Having too many milks wastes ur time, If i had it my way atm i would use Df Crema milk, And rice milk, for the reasons that skim milk is made from the by products of butter and yogurt and consists mainly of water and only a little milk product, therefore is a bad quality product and why many Barista's find it hard to smoothly stretch skim. And i'd prefer to use Rice Milk because the process of making it involves no chemicals, its an extrusion process, no genetic mods, very smooth and creamy, but must use the right brand, some are to bitter for coffee, nutty one's r good... When it comes down to it, get what is in demand, if u dont need it, dont get it, and if u have the ability to Educate ur customers, do so, and being able to explain why u dont use skim for example will make people understand and appreciate the knowledge...

Jerry

Forget every other milk except full cream. Soy has too much influence on the character in the cup, why bother trying to mask the true flavour of espresso. For the lactose intolerant, a long black or a well executed SINGLE espresso is a fantastic alternative and low in calories. For the coffee? lovers who drink skim, why do you always order a pain au chocolat or a sticky date with extra ice cream with your coffee? Hmm! I have canvassed this concept with some of my customers and have come to my own conclusion that eliminating some choices will not only improve productivity, but allow me to focus more on the cup, showcasing the bean in all of its glory. We currently carry full cream, skim & soy and have separate jugs for each hot chocolate. There must be about 16 jugs that are in use during our peeak periods, so you can imagine what this does to productivity. I believe 'crema' by dairy farmers is a low fat milk with a full cream flavour so I would be interested to hear from anyone with any experience with this milk. If WE don't start eliminating choice, we are soon to be making the rice milk, almond milk, soy milk etc etc etc. Sometimes I feel that the milk gets the precedent over coffee.

mimmo124

Dont you just love that. Our coffee machine is adjacent to our cake fridge, It really annoys me when you see people come up to the fridge and say, i am just looking because I cant possibly eat any cake, its just too fattening. I always reply with the comment, well you could eat the lemon merang that has little or no fat in it at all, exept for a little butter to make the crust.....they say well...ok why not. They dont realise however that there is like 1/3 sugar in that cake :P And after ordering a slice of triple choc mudcake, and demanding that I hop across the road to the shops to buy some skim milk because they cant drink hilo, cos it has too much fat in it!!! if you didnt order that piece of cake then you drink the whole fridge worth of hilo, and still have consumed less fat than is in that piece of cake. I am in no position to argue, as i am just an employee, but I would like to say something sometimes. Ordering deep fried sausage, wedges, chips etc and then complaining that we dont have diet lemonade, i mean come on We now only use hilo/capo (95% fat free) and normal soy. I am not adverse to using soy, and if textured properly it can make really nice looking flat whites and caps. As for the taste, i have never consumed all of a soy drink other than soy hot chocs. I find it masks the coffee flavour too much which i dont appreciate. And being an espresso/short mac drinker, i dont like milk all that much in coffee anyway. my 8 cents worth :P Mimmo