Jot Labs set out to make coffee concentrate that tastes like fresh brew, not instant coffee mixed into syrup. In a conversation with Palo Hawken, the company’s co-founder and Sarah Gordon VP of Sales and Marketing, we talked about what makes high‑concentration extraction different, how Jot grew through direct-to-consumer subscriptions, and why the company decided to pursue OU Kosher certification as its B2B ingredient business expanded. 

One of the interesting things about “concentrate” is that the word doesn’t always mean what you think it means. Palo Hawken says much of what’s sold as concentrate is simply low‑strength product in a big package—and in some cases, it’s made by reconstituting instant coffee. Jot’s approach is to fresh‑brew at high concentration, then package a small-format liquid that can be used quickly at home—or customized for industrial formulas. 

OU Kosher : If you would, please introduce yourself—your role, and the bigger picture for Jot Labs. 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): I’m Palo Hawken, co-founder of Jot Labs. We focus on coffee and tea extraction—especially very high concentration coffee liquids. The idea is: you can make an instant hot or cold cup of coffee but do it in a higher-quality way. People want more than just hot and cold black coffee now—they want a latte at home, something close to what they get at their local cafe—without messing around with old instant crystals. 

About me: I’m more of an inventor than a marketer, and my co-founder is more of a marketer than an inventor. We’re innovation first. We’re not taking what’s been done before and building a commercial shell around it—we’re trying to create intellectual property, new extraction processes, and equipment we design ourselves. The goal is consumer products and also industrial products—ingredients and food service—where there’s a real point of differentiation. 

OU Kosher: Can you tell us more about your main difference? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): A big part of that is quality. Most big companies make “concentrate” in a different way. They’ll take instant coffee, add water, and then sell it as premium. If you taste it, it tastes like instant coffee and water turned into syrup. We can fresh-brew at high concentration—like an espresso machine would—but at scale. So we’re trying to be a premium player in a crowded field that often does things in a low-quality way.  

OU Kosher: You’re selling only direct right now? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): Yeah. Our primary business is direct-to-consumer. On the consumer side, it’s mostly digital ads, connecting directly with customers, and converting them—mostly into subscriptions. That’s still the vast majority of the business. But the fast up-and-coming piece is B2B—bulk industrial ingredients and food service products. 

OU Kosher: On the B2B side, you can be an ingredient? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): Yeah. For example, our biggest customer sells a bottled espresso martini. They need coffee brewed at a strength that works for their formula, and we can do that. Another customer is a nationally distributed gelato company—they can’t brew their own coffee because it adds too much water to the gelato base. They need high concentration to make the formula work. 

Beyond our liquid extracts, we’ve also expanded our technology to transform these high-quality coffee and tea brews into soluble powders. This allows us to serve partners who need the same premium flavor profile and strength but in a dry format—whether for shelf-stable functional mixes or products where adding any moisture at all is a dealbreaker. There are these niche needs for high concentration, fresh-brewed extracts where you simply can’t make the product any other way unless you have that specific strength, quality, and versatility. 

OU Kosher: When I think about coffee concentrate, I think of those big plastic bottles. How are you educating customers? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): Part of it is that the category is confusing. A lot of what’s on shelves is basically water—low concentration, big packages. In retail, that can “function,” but it’s not really the same product. We’re not on the same shelf, so to speak, because we sell online. People buy us because they want a small, high-utility product—high concentration, high quality—and they want to make things quickly without equipment. 

OU Kosher: How did you start building awareness? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): It was 100% digital from day one—ads, a lot of video, showing exactly what it does and how people use it. There’s a channel answer and a marketing answer, but in simple terms: we’re educating people through the content itself. 

OU Kosher: Are you manufacturing this yourselves or using a co-packer? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): We do everything ourselves. That’s one of our points of pride—from green coffee to production to packaging, under our roof. 

OU Kosher: Let me ask some kosher questions. What prompted you to get certified—did a customer ask, or was it about marketing? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): It came from the B2B side. In our industrial ingredients onboarding, more and more prospective customers were saying that we can’t buy from you without kosher certification. So, bluntly, the ROI looked clear: the demand side was worth the investment and worth the process. 

Sarah Gordon (Jot Labs): And it’s definitely been requested from the consumer side too, but what really pushed it was B2B demand. 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): And we’ve been kosher certifying products for years—probably hundreds of products in total. The OU decision came from experience and reputation: start with the best first, see if we can get it sorted out. 

OU Kosher: Did you have to swap anything or change the process? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): It was pretty minimal. We had some storage totes that either needed to be replaced with permanent stainless steel tanks, or re-bought brand new for the date of the audit. We chose the better option—replace everything with stainless steel storage that’s CIP-able (clean-in-place). Honestly, it was a good kick-start for quality upgrades downstream from extraction. 

OU Kosher: So what’s certified—coffee and teas? And is everything in the facility certified? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): Yeah—coffees, teas, and the products on the current product list. We do have future products in the pipeline. 

Sarah (Jot Labs): One nuance: we have two products where we use our own coffee, but they’re co-packed in a different facility that’s not kosher certified. So we have a protein coffee and a peptide coffee—those are not kosher certified. 

Sarah (Jot Labs): These products are functional, high-protein coffees: one is formulated with whey, while the other uses collagen peptides. 

OU Kosher: Last question: what are you excited about next? New product pipeline or innovation? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): We can speak generally. We’ve been working on functional coffee—like the coffee protein powder category Sarah mentioned. And we think the same concept applies to tea: an instant way to make very fresh tasting, very high-quality teas. A lot of what we do is: if we can’t do it the way we think it should be done, we don’t even want to do the product. 

OU Kosher: What advice would you give to people who want to start a business? Do you ever question your decision to start? 

Sarah (Jot Labs): We question it every day, honestly. But you really have to solve a problem. What is the reason someone would switch? If you’re not solving something real, it’s going to be hard to stay with it. 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): And for customers—consumer or industrial—quality has to be obvious. People decide fast. Don’t underestimate how quickly someone will try options and then make a call. 

OU Kosher: One more thing—Passover. Have you considered a Passover product? 

Palo Hawken (Jot Labs): I haven’t, but if you have an idea, yeah—definitely open to it. Appreciate it. Really nice to meet you. 

OU Kosher: And thanks for choosing OU Kosher. 

https://jot.co/