Califia Farms Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

There's many brands in the crowded dairy free "Mylk" market now, from the likes of Vita Coco, Plenish, Alpro, and Rude Health...but a new one muscling in on their territory is Califia Farms, a Californian brand made with non GMO ingredients, gluten and dairy free and now available from Sainsbury's and Waitrose in the UK.

The range was reduced to £2 a bottle recently in Sainsbury's, so I went for the Unsweetened Vanilla variety. This is sugar free, vegan, carageenan free and contains 2.3% almonds, and 50% more calcium than cows milk. Quite impressive! I don't drink milk anymore so it's nice to know I can get my calcium from an alternative source.

I do like the curved bottle design...it's very fancy and feels a bit me special than your standard dairy free milks.

The milk certainly has a lovely vanilla aroma, and pouring it into a glass it was a lot creamier than I was expecting. Taste wise it was very pleasant, the vanilla is very noticeable and makes the milk taste sweeter, despite the lack of any sugar. This is a nice milk as far as almond milk goes, certainly better than any others I've tried from the likes of Alpro. It's creamy, vanilla hinted and with a nice thick texture...pretty much all you need from a milk substitute.

It also passes the hot drinks test - it blended perfectly with a cup of chai rooibos I made. Although I still haven't tested it in coffee...I will try that next!

Overall, this is a lovely Almond Milk variation, much better than others on the market like Alpro and probably healthier too. If you see these on offer I would highly recommend giving them a try! I really want to try the Coconut version next, which I've only seen in Waitrose stores so far.

Ingredients: water, almonds 2.3%, flavourings, calcium carbonate, emulsifier sunflower lecithin, sea salt, potassium ctrate, stabilizers (locust bean gum, gellan gum). 

Nutrition (per 100ml): 17 calories, 1.3g Fat, 0.8g carbohydrates, 0.1g sugars, 0.5g protein, 190mg calcium. 

8.5 out of 10.