Soy-Free Vegan Coffee in the Melbourne CBD

Melbourne is renowned for its coffee. In just about all coffee shops, vegans can pay about 50 cents extra for soymilk rather than dairy milk.

I personally avoid both soymilk and dairy milk as soymilk contains high concentrations of phytoestrogens and dairy milk contains high concentrations of estrone and estradiol, which are cow estrogens. In the study below, men who drank dairy milk regularly suffered from a significant drop in serum testosterone.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19496976

As easy way to avoid soy and dairy is to order pure espresso or a long black. A long black is similar to a latte except the espresso coffee is mixed with water rather than milk. The benefit or ordering a long black is you usually get double the amount of espresso coffee, which means double the amount of antioxidants.

The problem with the long black is that the taste of coffee by itself is strong. Another problem is that pure espresso or a long black has virtually zero calories (good for those losing weight but I personally want more calories).

This is when you need to get coffee mixed with a plant-based milk. My personal favourites are coconut milk and almond milk.

For lattes with coconut milk (that is, coconut lattes), I recommend Oli and Levi. There are two Oli and Levi cafes in Melbourne. There is an Oli and Levi on Coromandel Place and an Oli and Levi on Collins Street.

If you are concerned with the cost of coconut milk or the saturated fat content, I recommend almond milk. While just about any brand of coconut milk seems to taste good in coffee, coffee with almond milk only seems to taste good if certain brands are used. Personally I like to go to Little Bean Blue on Little Collins Street. The almond latte that this cafe prepares uses a brand of almond milk that is specially designed for coffee, meaning it tastes smooth and frothy.