Review: Rice Dream Chilled

Could the world's best plant milk get better? How about if it was 'fresh'? Rice Dream is unsurpassed as the best tasting plant milk, and it's now available in the chiller cabinet. Available at Waitrose and Tesco, this milk joins a growing range of plant milks to make the jump to the chiller cabinet, where they get a higher profile alongside dairy milks. Is Rice Dream improved by being 'fresh'?

We're quite sceptical of this move to sell soya and rice milk as 'fresh'. The energy costs of chilled distribution are far higher, and the end products are usually indistinguishable from their long-life versions. We do understand that consumers look for milk in the fridge though...and we certainly want them to consider the dairy-free alternatives.

The ingredients in Rice Milk Chilled are almost the same as the ambient version, but there is a slightly higher percentage of rice in there. The rice in Rice Dream is fermented, so more rice means more natural sugars. Drunk chilled from the glass though, we think this tastes just like regular Rice Dream. The appearance might just be a little whiter and thicker though.

It states clearly on the pack that Rice Dream Chilled can be used in tea and coffee. We do like to test this out in our reviews, and most plant milks flunk this test. Rice Dream Chilled is no exception to this rule... it's simply not thick enough to do the job. The tea should be sufficiently white without being cooled by too much milk. The photo above shows a generous amount of Rice Dream Chilled...but the brew isn't white enough to pass our test.

We're not going to deduct points for flunking the tea test as that's what soya milk is for! We did think long and hard about dropping points for the energy waste of chilled rice milk though. In the end we think we can excuse plant milk producers for wanting to put rice milk next to the cow's milk in supermarkets. Rice Dream Chilled, just like Rice Dream is still the best tasting plant milk out there, and it deserves full marks.

Verdict: Cool and Dreamy

---

Veganoo Score: ★★★★★
Rice Dream Chilled

---

Footnote: Ingredients

Here is the ingredients panel from the pack we reviewed.

Web: veganoo.net   Twitter: @veganoo   Facebook: fb.com/veganoo.net   Flickr: veganoo