Costa now does Almond Milk
New Year, new surprises!! As part of their 2019 menu, it appears that Costa Coffee now do additional dairy-free milks, including almond milk! Hurrah!
Of the three big coffee chains (I drink quite a lot of coffee, you might have noticed!), Costa was probably already my favourite even though they didn’t previously offer a milk we could have. Starbucks have offered almond milk for a while now but their coffee tastes so bad to me that I struggle to drink it with or without a suitable milk.
I don’t know whether its true or not but I’ve heard that Starbucks deliberately burn their coffee beans when they roast them because it gives them a distinctive (burnt) taste. That way when you order Starbucks anywhere in the world is has that same taste – a consistent quality. It’s just a shame that it seems to be a consistent low quality!
Nero I used to really like and the coffee is OK – but they’re range is limited compared to some of the other options – particularly when my wife and Piglet can’t have a milk option. I still generally find that independent coffee shops are the most likely to stock a range of dairy-free milks and often have the best coffee, but the lack of a brand means there’s an element of luck each time you go into one.
Anyway, I have ordered my first almond milk flat white from Costa. It looks like they’re using Alpro professional which I like. The coffee is definately foamy without having seperated at all (can be a problem with almond milk – particularly with more acidic coffee roasts. I found that out last week talking to a very helpful member of staff at Foggs in Windsor). It’s worth pointing out that the risk of cross contamination is high and is almost certainly unsuitable for those with acute allergies. There aren’t steaming wands for each type of milk and I guess the introduction of a nut milk might worse for those with nut allergies when having cow’s milk. We’re lucky that my son and I don’t seem to react (notably) to trace levels of allergen so I’m reasonably relaxed about cross-contamination but I appreciate this isn’t the case for everyone.
Unfortunately, the context of me drinking coffee on my own at 9am in the morning is that I am basically buying anything I can to break notes for change to put into the laundrette after our washing machine broke over Christmas. A family of three, wearing multiple Christmassy outfits in December and a toddler that is doing very well at toilet-training, although not yet 100% successfully, is not the perfect time to be left without a washing machine. We tried hand washing a lot of the items but after several hours of wringing out the wet clothes we had blisters on our hands. Plus the clothes were still too wet to dry out in our cold Victorian house even after several days. Hopefully the washing machine can be fixed on Thursday when the engineer arrives (my birthday as well, if any of you are interested – I take checks and high-end goods from Apple and Bose if that helps!)
Anyway, digression after digression, I delighted that Costa now do Almond milk and it will help a lot for when we just need a break and a hot drink when out and about. But I hope that it doesn’t replace the times that I would otherwise drink in an independent coffee shop – for quality and prices reasons alone, if not a sense of social, anti-corporate responsibility.