Hello,
I’m not the only one who noticed that fresh milk in Taiwan (yes there are cows in Taiwan, yes, they do have fresh milk here) stinks a little bit when smelling inside the bottle. After two days this smell is gone…
Now what could it be?
Fresh milk has this label, and I wonder where I can find more info about it:
Milk in Taiwan gives me diarrhea except for one brand…the one that says “High Quality Milk”…I think it is the only one that most closely resembles US/Canadian milk…it also is the one that costs the most usually…it lacks the strong “milk” smell you are talking about…I am guessing the different smell is from their pasteurizing technique…I go through about 2L of milk a day back in the mother country, but my stomach just can’t seem to tolerate the milk here in Taiwan…which is a shame…
Stickers on things in Taiwan mean nothing. The milk here all has powdered stuff added to it and Oligilioi which is a kind of Taiwanese magic potion designed to give foreigners the shits. And there is lots of sugar in it. I find the Guangquan stuff closest to milk. The Ha Ha Ha High Quality stuff is OK too. The rest is powdered milk fat with sugar, olgiggolo, and lactase so the Chinese can digest it (otherwise it would give them the shits).
EDIT: When I say “OK” up there what I meant was “will not make me instantly retch and can be safely added to coffee but not obviously drunk on its own”.
Milk in Asia = yuck. I’ve yet to find 2%.
[quote=“hexuan”]Stickers on things in Taiwan mean nothing. The milk here all has powdered stuff added to it and Oligilioi which is a kind of Taiwanese magic potion designed to give foreigners the shits. And there is lots of sugar in it. I find the Guangquan stuff closest to milk. The Ha Ha Ha High Quality stuff is OK too. The rest is powdered milk fat with sugar, olgiggolo, and lactase so the Chinese can digest it (otherwise it would give them the shits).
EDIT: When I say “OK” up there what I meant was “will not make me instantly retch and can be safely added to coffee but not obviously drunk on its own”.[/quote]
Well, the sticker seems to be from the states agriculture authorities and states “純” or “chun2” which means pure/simple/unmixed/genuine according to CEDICT. It tastes like normal milk too, but I don’t know about the smell when opening the fresh bottle. Or what the numbers mean… have to research more it seems 
Oh, its also no problem to find 2% milk here… Most of the milk brands have diffrent colors on the box (green/red/blue/black) which indicates the level of fat. Its easy to point out whats the diffrence when holding them next to each other and compare the labels.
So, 行政院農業委員會 means Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, they got a website on www.coa.gov.tw
When are you guys going to make the switch to soy. It’s the only way to go.
Cow puss stinks. Why wouldn’t it stink?
Coffee, hot chocolate, breakfast cereal all taste great with soy.
Tea and milk is about the only place soy can’t go with drinks. You have to drink black.
But, cooking. It’s the only time I sometimes have to use milk. Then, I go powdered and I’m sure its made somewhere else.
I’m not on a diet
[quote=“Ironman”]
Cow puss stinks. Why wouldn’t it stink? [/quote]
It doesn’t stink where I come from and in other places I lived. 
When I was young we even got it directly from the farmer and it did not stink!
It is a staple food, not a diet food.
[quote=“Ironman”]Cow puss stinks. Why wouldn’t it stink?
It doesn’t stink where I come from and in other places I lived.
When I was young we even got it directly from the farmer and it did not stink![/quote]
I was one of the farmers. I milked cows after school. The milk can stink from various feeds. Turnips for instance give the milk a particular taint.
Maybe right now the farmers are getting a winter vegetable and feeding it to the cows.
I have read that Chinese people usualy can not drink milk respectively it gives them the digestion problems indicated above. My wife (Taiwanese) drinks it when she cannot go to the toilet. Usualy some 7/11 New Zealand stuff. I drink it as well and that seems like real milk to me and my digestion.
So that it does have the toilet effect for my wife but NOT for me indicates it is more or less real milk.
I came across some fake milk with lactose, but I do not buy any milk where I cannot read the lable and avoid the fake stuff.
BobMilka
It is a staple food, not a diet food.
[/quote]
OK, I will try it sometimes (my taiwanese girlfriend uses it), but I’m so used to cow milk (drinking up to a liter per day when young).
Thats ok, but it never STINKED like this
[quote=“Ironman”]
Maybe right now the farmers are getting a winter vegetable and feeding it to the cows.[/quote]
Duh, what you call winter in Taiwan was my summer in Germany…
I must admit it takes a few days to get used to. My brother won’t have “cow puss” in the house. (His term) His wife couldn’t handle it the first few days and had to adapt. She loves it now.
Yeah, I even felt funny writing that about Taiwan and winter. I come from Melbourne where we can get reasonably cold. But, I bet you never felt as cold as you do here when inside.
See the winter heating thread if that is the case.
I would probably choose to drink the stuff that makes Chinese people poo excessively as it probably doesn’t contain lactase. As I understand it, people from places with a long history of drinking cow milk don’t need the lactase, but I’m not sure how it would affect the taste. I suppose the Taiwanese producers are trying to market it as a tasty leisure drink, rather than a staple, and thus the taste is altered. Also the quality of grass and use of anti-biotics and yeild enhancers will affect the taste, as anybody who tasted milk from hand reared (er, you know what I mean) dairy cattle.
Smell the breath of a coffee with milk drinker after they had their morning pick me up.
Then work it out.
cereal + soy milk doesn’t taste very good in my opinion…I also find that most of the soy milk that is on sale are really sweet…I’ve been considering buying one of those SoyJoy machines that make soy milk for you…but I have too many contraptions sitting in the kitchen…
Our soy milk maker died.
The soy milk I like from here is the Imei brand with a brown front and soy beans all over it. It is a little sweet, but I like it that way.
If you get this one with a green front I’m reasonably sure it is low sugar.
Big variation in sugar and flavor from brand to brand.
OK. I’m going to have to my next cup of coffee with soy. I’m out of cow puss, but I noticed I have a bottle of soy. It was ok on the raisin bran.
Another source of good unsweetened soy milk is the local traditional Taiwanese breakfast places…they usually have a big stockpot full of unsweetened soy that they make fresh every morning…I sometimes pop over there in the morning with a glass jar and tell them to fill it up with 1~2L of soy milk and take it home…I think it was around 50~60NT…I forgot…
Soy in my coffee. Different…very different.
[quote=“engerim”][quote=“Ironman”]
Maybe right now the farmers are getting a winter vegetable and feeding it to the cows.[/quote]
Duh, what you call winter in Taiwan was my summer in Germany…[/quote]
You Germans are lucky, we never get that hot in summer…
The area in Austria where I come from has traditionaly a lot of milk production and I grow up with daily fresh milk from the farmer next door. We even got the butter and that stuff directly there and for the hardcore guys you cold even drink it warm directly after milking the cow.
So I simply need that stuff but I just buy this one brand and I am fine with it. Don’t like that powder stuff and the soy milk is ok once in the while and COLD!
But that’s just me and that’s not counting as I would even eat a lot of cheese directly by biting it of the block (and causing Ironmans next shock in life).
I think if you guys haven’t tried it, you should try a brand called “Fresh Delight”. Its in brown packaging and they are usually adding some smaller cartons on the side. Its a more expensive brand, but I haven’t seen anything come close to the quality. Apparently they massage the cows or something. Or maybe they listen to Mozart… not sure, but the milk certainly tastes more like the stuff back home.