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Japanese milk is almost exclusively UHT. Heat treatment at 120 degrees for 2 seconds is the norm. You can get milk which is just pasteurised. It's called 低温殺菌

by laurieg 10y ago

Japanese milk is almost exclusively UHT. Heat treatment at 120 degrees for 2 seconds is the norm. You can get milk which is just pasteurised. It's called 低温殺菌牛乳 (teion sakkin gyunyu) but you have to pay a premium. Personally I find the regular milk in Japan unpleasant enough that I basically stopped drinking milk after moving here.

glandium 10y ago
I thought the norm was between 低温殺菌 and UHT, but it looks like you're right. The method is however different from the one used for UHT in France, which is why they can't be kept more than 10 days. However, it's possible to find "long life" milk that can be preserved at room temperature for a couple months, that is also UHT, but also tastes much better to me. Check out ロングライフ牛乳 on amazon or rakuten.
- laurieg 10y ago
  I find the Japanese milk to be rather sturdy, I often keep it for a month or so (though I only use it for tea so a little change in flavor probably goes unnoticed).
greggman 10y ago
Wow, to each their own. I prefer Japanese milk to anything I got at whole foods in SF and I prefer it to the UHT milk I had in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Barcelona. It seems richer to me. On the other hand I think I might have become lactose intolerant recently. Trying to stop drinking milk to see if it helps certain issues
kijin 10y ago
Same in South Korea. Almost all milk is treated at 130-135 degrees for 2 seconds. There's one brand (named after Louis Pasteur) that treats their milk at 63 degrees for half an hour. It's more expensive and not widely available, but it tastes so much better. The funny thing is that most of the UHT milk here is still only rated for a shelf life of 10 days. You have to pay extra for some sort of super-UHT variant that comes in smaller, thicker cartons if you want to keep it for a few months. Perhaps the rules were set when refrigerated distribution wasn't as widespread as it is now. Or maybe the major brands just prefer to use cheap, non-sterile containers. Either way, we're stuck with disgusting UHT milk that doesn't even last long, negating its only raison d'etre.

by laurieg 10y ago

glandium 10y ago

I thought the norm was between 低温殺菌 and UHT, but it looks like you're right. The method is however different from the one used for UHT in France, which is why they can't be kept more than 10 days. However, it's possible to find "long life" milk that can be preserved at room temperature for a couple months, that is also UHT, but also tastes much better to me. Check out ロングライフ牛乳 on amazon or rakuten.

laurieg 10y ago
I find the Japanese milk to be rather sturdy, I often keep it for a month or so (though I only use it for tea so a little change in flavor probably goes unnoticed).

greggman 10y ago

Wow, to each their own. I prefer Japanese milk to anything I got at whole foods in SF and I prefer it to the UHT milk I had in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Barcelona. It seems richer to me. On the other hand I think I might have become lactose intolerant recently. Trying to stop drinking milk to see if it helps certain issues

kijin 10y ago

Same in South Korea. Almost all milk is treated at 130-135 degrees for 2 seconds. There's one brand (named after Louis Pasteur) that treats their milk at 63 degrees for half an hour. It's more expensive and not widely available, but it tastes so much better. The funny thing is that most of the UHT milk here is still only rated for a shelf life of 10 days. You have to pay extra for some sort of super-UHT variant that comes in smaller, thicker cartons if you want to keep it for a few months. Perhaps the rules were set when refrigerated distribution wasn't as widespread as it is now. Or maybe the major brands just prefer to use cheap, non-sterile containers. Either way, we're stuck with disgusting UHT milk that doesn't even last long, negating its only raison d'etre.