Review: Vive Soy Range of Soya Milks

Spain's biggest brand of Soya Milk, now in the UK. Vive Soy launched earlier this year in Tesco with six flavours. Unusually, the range includes chocolate and cappuccino flavours in full size cartons. We thought we'd take an overview of the full range:

Launching into an already crowded soya milk market is difficult, so it's useful that Vive Soy use eye catching cartons. You'll find them in the long life aisle rather than in the ever more popular chiller cabinet.

Cappuccino

The blurb:

A coffee lovers dream. One for the ‘grown ups’. 

Soya cappuccino in a carton...complete with the chocolate dusting. This tastes amazing chilled, like tiramisu in a glass. We've never come across coffee or mocha soya milk before, so have nothing to compare it to. Just sweet enough, just coffee enough, just a hint of chocolate. Very good indeed.

Veganoo Score: ★★★★★

Unsweetened

The blurb:

For those who prefer their drinks a little less sweet. 

Modern soya milks are usually good and this is too. Smooth, non-chalky, non-beany and a nice mild taste. It isn't a soya and water sort of recipe though, so it depends whether you're looking for a fortified and stabilised soya milk. One thing it certainly has is plenty of body, with 13% soya.

Veganoo Score: ★★★★☆

Light

The blurb:

Fewer calories and a more delicate flavour.

We've never quite seen the attraction of a 'light' soya milk and this one hasn't changed our mind. Why not just use an unsweetened soya milk? This light version contains a little sugar, but actually tastes pretty sweet. We wouldn't agree that the taste is delicate, but we guess they're comparing it to the sweetened version.

Veganoo Score: ★★★☆☆

Natural

The blurb:

We challenge you to find a tastier and smoother soy drink.

What Vive Soy call 'Natural', other firms call 'Original'. A few years ago, it would have been called 'Sweetened'. This is a sweetened and flavoured soya milk. We dislike soya milk that has a vanilla taste, unless it's Vanilla soya milk, as it taints everything... savoury sauces and cups of tea shouldn't taste of vanilla.

Veganoo Score: ★★☆☆☆

Vanilla

The blurb:

Tantalises the taste buds with its delicious smooth flavour.

Really sweet vanilla soya milk. This is something you'd use to make custard or to sweeten a smoothie. We couldn't imagine drinking it from the glass, unless you have a sweet tooth. Maybe if you pour it over some ice, that might water it down a little and make a pleasant summer drink.

Veganoo Score: ★★★☆☆

Chocolate

The blurb:

If you’re a fan of chocolate, you’ll love this. 

This is basically a chocolate milkshake. Pretty sweet, but not too much as it's got the cocoa to balance out. You could warm this up to make a hot chocolate, but we wonder whether you want to drink a litre of hot chocolate once the carton is open? Nice chilled by the glass.

Veganoo Score: ★★★★☆

All of these soya milks contain Vitamin D, and the packs are not labelled as vegan, but the company states on their website that the vitamin is synthetic and the full range is vegan.

Vive Soy soya milks are on offer in Tesco at the moment for just 90p per carton.

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Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.

Vive Soy Cappuccino Ingredients

Vive Soy Unsweetened Ingredients

Vive Soy Light Ingredients

Vive Soy Natural Ingredients

Vive Soy Vanilla Ingredients

Vive Soy Chocolate Ingredients

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