Short story I’m used to how grocery store fresh full fat milk tastes in the USA, I’ve started buying from a local source that is a university research station because it is the only source of fresh milk(UHT milk in boxes tastes horrible).
This stuff tastes creamier and fattier than standard whole fresh milk in the USA, it almost is like you can taste the butter in the milk! Its good tasting, really good but I suspect it is higher than 8% fat content. Even beyond the taste the weight gain was noticeable in my toddler when we switched him from powdered milk(ghastly tasting stuff!).
Some dairy cow breeds can put out up to 5-6% milk-fat milk vs the usual 3.5 to 4% range. I suspect this is what is happening in your scenario. Most of the time milk is blended and processed to standard milk-fat levels by large dairies, it sounds like the university does not do this and just markets the milk straight.
In the US, 4% butterfat content milk is called whole milk. In the UK whole milk would be 3.5% butterfat, also called full fat milk.
According to USDA standards, 10.5% to 18% butterfat is “half and half,” nominally half milk, half cream. Light cream is 18% to 30%, further up the line is medium cream, whipping cream and heavy cream.
Perhaps the milk isn’t homogenized. Milk naturally contains large globules of fat and protein, these will separate into layers. Homogenization is a process that breaks up all of the globules to a uniform smaller size, which helps produce a more consistent product with longer shelf life. So your non-homogenized milk might still have 4% fat overall, but all of the fat forms a layer of cream at the top. When you take a sip, the first thing you taste is MILKFAT!, at a level that you would never encounter otherwise.
The “whole milk” that is bought is some states in the US has some of the butter fat removed and is not really whole milk.
After my folks stopped shipping milk it took me time to get use to not drinking “real milk” from the store.
Summary of milk/dairy terms (in USA) according to butterfat content:
[ul][li] 0% = Skim or Skimmed or No-Fat.[/li][li]1% = Low-Fat or 1%.[/li][li] 2% = Medium-Fat or 2%.[/li][li] >3% - 4.5% = Whole milk or Full-Fat milk.[/li][li]>10% - 18% = Half & half.[/li][li]18% - 30% = light cream.[/li][li]30% - 36% = whipping cream.[/li][li]>36% = heavy cream.[/li][/ul]
Kermit mentioned this above. And as astro mentioned, most commercial dairy plants blend milk from various herds to provide a consistent product. (Herds vary in the butterfat content of their milk. Some breeds are known to produce higher milk, and each individual herd can vary, depending on how the farmer feeds them, treats them. and cares for them. Some studies have even claimed that cows produce more milk when there is soothing music (especially classical) playing in their barn.)
Some plants have ‘cheapened’ their milk by moving closer to the lower limit for that type: the whole milk I remember as a child used to be at or above 4%, now many plants are closer to 3.5% or 3.25% for their whole milk. (Better technology makes it easier to more closely monitor the range of butterfat content.) If you buy direct from a dairy farm or a small creamery, you can get what is called super-fat or premium whole milk, which is higher than 4% butterfat, usually in the 5%-9% range.
As I understand it (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong), the standard procedure at most large-scale dairys and milk processing plants is to separate all of the fat out of *all *of the milk, basically creating a bunch of skim milk and a bunch of milkfat, and then to add fat back into the milk to create the various products.
This is how I understand it to work because nutrition labels are based on the percentage of fat and straight cream actually has other direct uses (e.g. in butter production), so the ‘excess’ cream is sold separately to those buyers.
