Soysperiment

Mang and I got to talking about soy one day and we were going to do this experiment at Mando after church last Sunday but I forgot to bring the English Soy (ES). So I just bought some Chinese Soy (CS) at Miracle Grocery Store (hehe) and conducted the experiment on my own.

I first wanted to see what the overall difference was in terms of taste and texture, so I drank it and observed its opacity etc:

Chinese Soy Drink	English Soy Drink
Milky white with specks of white	Smooth milky white colour
Sweet with strong soy taste Doesn’t taste like milk at all	Milky taste with a hint of musky soy taste Tastes abit dusty
Lighter consistency Does not thicken saliva after consumption	Slightly thicker consistency Thickens saliva after drinking

These two drinks taste completely different. Their processing methods must be worlds apart. On its own, CS tastes better and, in fact, its not appealing to me at all to drink ES on its own. So in this instance, Chinese Soy wins.

Out of curiosity's sake, I also mixed the Chinese and English soy drink. It was definately more palatable. The strong CS flavour is what you taste, but you still have that saliva thickening after-effect found in the ES drink.

Then I thought I would try it with a rather bland cereal, like Weet-Bix:

Chinese Soy Drink	English Soy Drink
Tastes sweet and refreshing, like eating a dessert!	Tastes alright, like normal milk with a dusty soy taste, rather bland
Makes me think of Chinese banquet desserts	Makes me think of business suits

Again, Chinese Soy wins.

Finally, since sweet cereals are also a common foodstuff eaten with milk, I thought I would try it with Honey Stars, a wonderful honey flavoured sweet cereal which I brought back from Malaysia:

Chinese Soy Drink	English Soy Drink
Tastes abit weird! I don’t think the strong soy flavour and the honey flavour of the cereal mixes very well	Tastes alot like normal milk with a soy after taste
Sweet to the point of artificial	Nice and sweet
Makes me think of bright Mattel toys with lead paint on them	Makes me think of… honey stars

On this point, I have to say that English Soy wins. And in fact, I think the strong, sweet CS flavour would prolly not go with alot of flavoured cereals. I would prolly stick with ES when eating these foodstuffs.

Overall, Chinese Soy tastes heaps better than English Soy. However, I suspect that its also because CS has alot more sugar and is prolly not as healthy (think diabetes and added calories!)

I asked SA, who loves tofu and soy, about why some CS drinks are white and some are green. She replied with...

"maybe green soy milk is flavoured with pandan or something..? Or maybe it's just past its use-by date"

Insightful.. Thanks :P