Review: Cocojune Passionfruit Organic Cultured Coconut (nondairy yogurt)

[ysabetwordsmith]

Recently I found a nondairy yogurt that I hadn't tried before, so I picked up one to sample.   This is Cocojune Passionfruit Organic Cultured Coconut, also available in a few other flavors.  The texture is on the thick side, so they did a good job with that, which is challenging in nondairy yogurt.  The flavor has a very bright fruity, floral top note, creamy coconut notes in the middle, and buttery nutty bottom notes.  Overall very summery and tropical.  It's tangy but not eye-crossingly sour, also not overly sweet.  It's on the lower-sugar side of the scale.  The thickener is tapioca starch, which I'm sure helps the flavor as well as the texture.  I quite like it. 

I think this would make a great topping for a bowl of fruit salad, or if you like a yogurt dressing it should work for that too.  The label is a little hard to read in places, but I believe it contains 6 different cultures, which is way above the usual 1-2 of commercial brands, and even health food yogurts average 3-4.  So if you are eating yogurt for the probiotics, then this is an excellent choice.  :D  Also worth trying as a starter if you want to culture your own cocogurt, and you don't want to buy a starter per se.  Most highly recommended.

Comments

Yogurt starter

[dialecticdreamer]

Thanks for the info! I'm going to find it locally, and taste test! One of the things that I've been trying to make is vegan yogurt that isn't just carbs from starch thickeners instead of an actual FOOD.

For those, like me, with a milk allergy, look for WATER-CULTURED starter. Most yogurt starters are milk-cultured, ditto for many kefir cultures, and an allergy isn't the same as hating the taste or texture of something. Even the TINIEST exposure can kick a mild allergic reaction into the land of ER visits and carrying an epi-pen.

Re: Yogurt starter

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Thanks for the info! I'm going to find it locally, and taste test! One of the things that I've been trying to make is vegan yogurt that isn't just carbs from starch thickeners instead of an actual FOOD.<<

I'm happy I could help. The tapioca is in the middle of the list. I'd avoid brands that list the thickener first or second.

>>For those, like me, with a milk allergy, look for WATER-CULTURED starter. Most yogurt starters are milk-cultured, ditto for many kefir cultures, and an allergy isn't the same as hating the taste or texture of something.<<

Kefir is often water-cultured but that's the only one I've seen. Vegan products are supposed to be made without any animal-sourced ingredients or processes. That means no calf rennet in vegan chiz, no animal testing in vegan makeup, and so on. I'm not sure where to look up the culture base for vegan yogurt to check they're doing it right.

Re: Yogurt starter

[dialecticdreamer]

The first time I tried culturing coconut cream for yogurt, I called the top five companies making "vegan" cultures. They were ALL started in milk, then replaced successively with a thinner milk-water mixture, until only the last iteration was in only water. No, they could not guarantee that there wouldn't be a fractional amount of milk in the culture, but five steps from the original culture was enough to allow them to label it vegan.

I ended up going with a company that has since gone out of business, but they were entirely water cultured.

Re: Yogurt starter

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's not really vegan, whatever the law says. Vegans are fussy, and like you pointed out, some people eat vegan because they are allergic to an animal product.

The American food system is slovenly. >_

Re: Yogurt starter

[dialecticdreamer]

Put it this way, I felt safer cloning the cultures in the So Delicious brand (it tastes less sweet to me than Silk), than relying on their definition of "vegan". Learning that the stuff cultures but does not thicken was highly annoying.