“Shocked specialty coffee shop owners report rising demands for cow’s milk.”
“People are going back to their roots—raw milk is back!”
“Dairy milk is making a HUGE comeback.”
The headlines are EVERYWHERE.
Is this really happening? How can it be? Is a cultural shift pulling us away from plant-based drinks, and are we witnessing the dawn of a dairy renaissance?
If you’ve been following Aa closely, you’ll know our benchmark for any coffee establishment is an oat flat white. So naturally, this topic feels deeply personal. But is our metric still with the times?
We could ignore the noise. We could roll our eyes at the sudden milk discourse and retreat into our comfort zone of cheese boards and obscene amounts of salted butter. Cow’s milk in our coffee though? That’s where we draw the line. Still, curious as ever and unwilling to let hearsay determine our loyalties, we decided to approach it scientifically.
Oatly, in their usual blunt fashion, invited us to settle the question through a blind tasting. On a sunny Monday morning, we headed to the serene and cozy Scandinavian Embassy, ready to turn our preferences into data. After indulging in some sweet chit-chat and stuffing our mouths with scrumptious pastries, we were handed two identical cups of coffee—one with cow’s milk, the other with Oatly—and asked to choose our favorite.
Then came the inevitable confusion. Everyone made their choice, but no one could tell which coffee contained which milk. We logged our answers, looked around the room, and realised no one felt entirely confident. The preliminary verdict? Unclear. But maybe that was the point all along.
After a series of engaging activities that challenged our preconceptions, we arrived at the big moment: the results. Most of the attendees had picked the cup with Oatly. As it turns out, we were not alone. A Netherlands-wide study by Oatly showed that 53% of participants, unaware of which milk they were drinking, also chose the coffee with Oatly over the one with regular milk.
Phew. We could breathe again. Aa is still one with the Zeitgeist.
But why do people think they prefer dairy, even when blind tests say otherwise? Enter behavioral psychologist Chantal van der Leest, who explained that our food choices are deeply tied to unconscious biases. These are shaped by tradition, memory, and habits. They influence not just what we eat and drink, but how we expect things to taste before we even try them. This is especially true for plant-based products, which have long been surrounded by myths and misconceptions (which might explain this whole ‘cow’s milk is back’ blasphemy).
Blind tests like this one strip away those biases, allowing objectivity to take over—and revealing what people actually prefer. In this case? Oatly!
We know what you’re thinking. You probably don’t believe us. Luckily, you don’t have to take our word for it. Oatly’s very own Taste Truck will be touring The Netherlands from March 17 to April 7, 2025—offering free oat coffees and a chance to put your taste buds to the test. It will be in Amsterdam until the 23rd of March, in Utrecht from the 24th until the 30th March, and in Rotterdam from the 1st until the 7th of April.
Find more information about it here and see you there!
Xx,
Aa
