Why My Café Menu Doesn't Have Oat Milk, and Why It Never Will

This morning, yet again, one of my regulars stood at the counter and asked, "Didi, can't you do an oat milk latte?" I set down the filter coffee decanter and smiled. I told her it's not that I "can't," it's that I "don't." She tilted her head, puzzled, and ended up ordering her usual full-cream milk coffee. This kind of conversation happens three or four times a month.

I'm well aware that Delhi's café scene is changing. If you walk into a café in Hauz Khas Village, the menu lists oat milk, almond milk and coconut milk side by side, with surcharges ranging from 40 to 60 rupees. Open Instagram and you'll find an endless stream of latte photos tagged "plant-based." It might seem reckless to go against that current. But ever since I opened this café at the age of twenty-nine, I've stuck to one rule: I don't put anything on the menu that I'm not confident tastes good.

It's not that I've never tried oat milk. I've bought and tasted several brands. I've mixed it with black coffee, steamed it, added it to chai. The result was the same every time. Thin. A faint nuttiness that skims the surface and vanishes almost instantly. Most importantly, when I added oat milk to a South Indian filter coffee, that rich, heavy body, the way the coffee and milk meld into one, completely fell apart. The foam that forms when you pour coffee in a long stream from the decanter into the tumbler, that creamy layer, oat milk simply cannot produce it.

My café's filter coffee is made with just two things: beans sourced from Chikmagalur and full-cream milk from a dairy farm on the outskirts of Delhi. The milk is delivered three times a week, and with it I brew coffee, make paneer and churn lassi. There's barely anything left over. If that cycle breaks down, I'm in trouble. Stocking oat milk would mean finding separate refrigerator space, managing a different set of expiration dates and sitting on inventory of imported products that cost over 300 rupees a pack. For a small café, that's a real burden.

I look at the ingredient, not the trend

Someone once told me, "If you ignore trends, you'll lose customers." Maybe so. But I chose to focus on ingredients rather than trends. What I added to the menu this summer wasn't an oat milk latte, it was aam panna, a cooked mango drink. I bought Dasheri mangoes at the market, simmered them down myself and added cardamom. It cost less than a single pack of oat milk, and the customer response was far better.

When I choose what goes on the menu, I consider three things. Have I personally tasted this ingredient and fallen in love with it? Can I source it reliably in Delhi? And can I use it up completely in my kitchen with nothing going to waste? Oat milk failed all three. Full-cream milk, on the other hand, has passed all three for twenty-two years.

If insisting on full-cream makes me old-fashioned

Every now and then, a one-star review pops up online: "No vegan options." At first, it stung. But one day, a rickshaw-wallah who stops by every morning before work for a filter coffee said to me, "If the coffee here ever changes, I'll have nowhere else to go." That settled things in my mind. My café doesn't have to be for everyone. But for the people who do come, it has to taste the same every single time.

For customers who are lactose intolerant, I recommend a black coffee or offer a lighter version of masala chai. Chai traditionally uses a lot of milk, but if you increase the water ratio and intensify the ginger and spices, it tastes perfectly good even with less milk. It's not that I offer no alternatives at all. I find alternatives within my own approach.

How a small café survives

If running a café in Delhi has taught me one thing, it's that a small shop crumbles fast when it tries to stock everything. Chain cafés can carry oat milk, almond milk and gluten-free bread. They have supply chains, logistics teams and marketing budgets. What I have is one kitchen, three employees and twelve tables. At this scale, expanding the menu means the quality of each item drops. Better to do well what you can actually do.

When I open the café doors each morning, the very first thing I do is check the milk. I smell it, dab a bit on my finger and gauge how much I'll need for the day. If there's milk left over from the day before, I turn it into paneer or use it in kadhi, the yoghurt-based curry on the lunch menu. This routine has been running for twenty-two years. There is no room for a pack of oat milk in it, physically or philosophically.

I like the term slow living. It doesn't mean living slowly. It means stripping away what's unnecessary and focusing on what remains. Running a café is the same. The shorter the menu, the more care goes into each cup. Not carrying oat milk isn't a refusal. It's a choice.

Later this evening, after I close up the café, I plan to simmer the leftover milk into rabri. You add sugar and cook it down slowly over low heat until the milk turns into a thick, caramel-coloured cream. Standing in front of that pot, I feel certain that not a single drop of milk goes to waste. You can't make this with oat milk. And that's my entire answer.