Since changing my eating habits and becoming Vegan I've tried all of the alternatives to cows milk and this one is by far my favourite! I used to just use soya milk in my cereal, smoothies, tea and so on as I wasn't too keen on the other common cows milk substitutes such as rice and almond milk.

Although soya milk tasted bearable I wasn't keen on the waterry texture and it wasn't particularly tasty either. After a while I just fancied a change. I shop in Tesco a majority of the time and they have quite a wide selection of dairy-free milk but seeing as I'd already tried most of them I decided to take a bit of a risk and try this. I wasn't sure if I'd like this as I thought that the taste of coconut might be a bit too overpowering and sickly but as I love the taste of the cooking version of coconut milk in curries etc I thought that it was worth trying and I'm glad I did - I love it.

I always buy the fresh version but there's a longlife version available as well for the same price. A one litre carton retails at a pound in my local Tesco's and unfortunately it is not on offer very often. Although a pound sounds quite cheap it soon adds up seeing as I get through about four litres of this a week! I use it in everything though - tea, coffee, cereal, smoothies, cooking (eg cakes and pancakes) so I think that if you do drink cow's milk but fancy this as an additional drink or a bit of a change a carton will last you a lot longer.

The 'milk' comes in a tall cardboard carton which is very distinctive - it has a blue background with a picture of milk pouring out of a coconut and into a glass. In the background there's a picture of a tropical tree. This design makes the product seem quite exotic and natural in my opinion like it's fresh from a coconut tree. The back of the carton has all of the relevant information on it as well as the nutritional information. The carton has a screw-on lid which comes sealed to keep it fresh. Once the seal is broken the milk should be kept refrigerated and consumed within 5 days.

The milk itself looks just like cows' milk and the consistency is pretty much the same as well. I was expecting it to be a lot thicker but the milk-like consistency makes it more versatile as if it was as thick as normal coconut milk it wouldn't taste right in a lot of things like tea and coffee. The taste is nice but I must admit that I was initially dissapointed as it's not very 'coconutty' - it's more like sweet soya milk with a very subtle coconutty taste. The sweetness isn't at all sickly or overpowering and over time I've gotten used to the taste of this and I love it.

It doesn't have a synthetic or artificial taste like some milk substitutes do (eg rice milk) and it doesn't taste overpowering. It's just a nice, refreshing taste with a subtle hint of coconut. It isn't creamy or anything and it is very versatile. I use this mainly in smoothies as it doesn't interfere with the taste of the fruit and it is also great with muesli, porridge and I've used it to make pancake mix and cakes a few times too. When I use it in hot drinks or for cooking the coconut taste is pretty much undetectable.

The milk is really low calorie and 100ml contains just 27 calories. The ingredients includes salt which put me off a little but it doesn't taste at all salty. The milk contains lauric acid which has many benefits and one 250ml glass provides 17.5% of the recommended daily amount of calcium.

Overall I highly recommend this milk substitute. It is ideal for anyone who is a Vegan or lactose intollerant but it will make a nice change from cow's milk too. It is affordable, versatile and it tastes nice. Five out of five stars.