Tesco Finest Range: Bone Food or Coo Juice? - Tesco Finest Channel Island Milk. (Tesco Finest Range)

Member Name: sgathach

Product:	Tesco Finest Range
Date:	05/02/06 (1414 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste

Disadvantages: Fat content

My Experience of Tesco’s Finest Channel Island Milk.

I bought this because I am trying to find a milk that I like that doesn’t come from cows that are held in milking pens for cheap supermarket supply.

This is from Tesco’s Finest range and can be found near the organic milk section which is normally next to the normal range of milks.

It comes in a clear plastic bottle with a gold top which is sealed by one of those Snap and peel thingies that run round the rim of the cap.

On the bottle it is described as Rich and creamy Channel Island Milk from Jersey and Guernsey cows. A delicious golden coloured milk perfect with fruit mueslis, smoothies and café lattes. Yum Yum what a glorious description you can see why I bought it. I was drawn in by the thought of a lovely muesli breakfast with a long café lattes with the morning newspaper, my mind was wondering and I could just imagine myself sitting in the sun at an outside café. So when I noticed people were starting to stare at me holding a bottle of milk with a silly smile on my face gazing at the ceiling I thought I better just put it in my basket and moo-ve away from the milk aisle.

I left so quickly I didn’t even know how much it cost till I got home and looked at the receipt. It cost 91p for the litre, not that bad really if it is as good as it looks.

On examining the bottle I read some pretty obvious stuff like “Pasteurised whole channel Island milk” I suppose they would have to state if it was half milk and half something else. (Incidentally did you know that Louis Pasteur a French Chemist was the man who discovered pasteurisation, hence it being named after him? Pasteurisation is the partial sterilisation of liquids, not just milk, but especially beer, wine and milk to destroy the nasty organisms lurking within. Milk is pasteurised by heating to about 145 degrees F for half an hour then quickly cooled to under 50 degrees F. The milk is then kept at this temperature. This process however doesn’t kill the lactic acid and acid bacteria which are the goodies in milk.) Okay history lesson over back to the Channel Island Milk.

The bottle itself is recyclable a very good point in my book, it states quite clearly that this milk is British Farm Standard, high in calcium and of course you to keep it refrigerated otherwise of course the cooling process of pasteurisation is reversed all the nasty bacteria grow back and the milk goes sour. Oh so I better hurry up and get this bottle back in the fridge.

As well as all the above there is a nutrition table which I will put at the bottom of the review for those of you who would like to know the fat content, which is quite scary so I’ll leave that till last, no point putting you off till I tell you what it tastes like.

Finally on the matter of the writing on the bottle is an allergy advice warning note which states very clearly – wait for it – Contains Milk! And then tells you it is suitable for vegetarians.



The colour is a nice light creamy colour with a slight yellow tinge, it looks quite thick, I was slightly put off by the colour being so used to the pristine clean looking bright white milk that I normally buy, but I take the top off and smell it nonetheless; It has a cold clean smell and doesn’t smell much different to the green topped semi-skimmed that we normally get although there was the slightest whiff of cream or was I imagining it, I’m not quite sure, I think I was smelling too hard.

The taste is good, it doesn’t taste as thick as it looks and the description on the bottle led me to believe it was going to feel like drinking a very creamy rich milk when in actual fact it doesn’t taste much different from normal full fat milk. I expected it to taste much creamier in my mouth than it did and the viscosity was again not any different to the normal milk range. I did experience a rich creamy aftertaste, this was actually a little too much of an aftertaste for me personally but the tang was not unpleasant.

I then gave this product the ultimate test as far as I am concerned – in my coffee; I made a cup of instant granulated Nescafe in my espresso cup as I normally would in the afternoon, therefore knowing my taste-buds would be able observe even the slightest variation in flavour.

Well the outcome is that I couldn’t discern any significant difference between that cup of coffee and the one I had had before I went shopping, however what I did notice was that my coffee had the same creamy aftertaste as drinking the milk on its own.

In summary I would buy this milk for our daughter to drink as she’s young and needs all the fat and nutrients that she can get, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to drink it or make myself coffee with it.

In addition I could find no information on the bottle that would lead me to believe this milk came from free-range proper “field” cows. The information stated is that this milk is produced in the U.K for Tesco Stores. I had conjured up this image of Jersey and Guernsey cows roaming in meadows filled with buttercups and daisies.

Here is the dreaded Nutrition chart as promised earlier.

Nutrition.
=======

A 200ml (7fl oz) 100ml
Typical serving (3 ½ fl oz)
Composition provides provide

Energy 670J 335kJ
16okcal 80cal
Protein 7.4g 3.7g
Carbohydrate 9.4g 4.7g
Of which sugars 9.4g 4.7g
Fat 10.4g 5.2g
Of which saturates 6.8g 3.4g
Mono-unsaturates 2.6g 1.3g
Polyunsaturates 0.2g 0g
Fibre 0g 0g
Sodium 0.1g 0.1g
Vitamins/minerals 268Omg (35%RDA) 134.Omg (17%RDA)

This pack contains 5 servings.

Excuse the wibbly wobbliness of the nutrition table. It's just the way it went when posting the review.

Quite honestly if you are on any kind of diet I don’t think you’ll be drinking this because although it’s good stuff the Nutrition list looks to me like it’s just packed with fat and sugars.

Thank you reading.



Sheena 2005

Summary: It's lovely milk for a treat but it's a shame it's not actually from the Channel Islands.