I am bad at making coffee. My household owns a drip machine, a pour over, a French press, an espresso maker, several cold brew and iced coffee contraptions, and a pile of instant coffee left over from our Dalgona phase.
Yet, I far too often find myself buying my coffee on weekends, en route to work, and throughout the day. I love the consistency—not left to chance, depending on how coarse my beans are, whether the water was just boiling or not, and when the last time I descaled was. I’ve conditioned myself to think of coffee as a treat—a break from my desk, a reason to leave the house—or a bribe to get me up and going in the morning. What kind of Pavlovian experiment would this be if my reward weren’t consistently satisfying?
But Jot coffee is different. The company launched last year with a simple concept: a coffee concentrate that it deems “Ultra Coffee.” It’s 20 times the concentration of regular coffee and gets tipped into a glass or mug one tablespoon at a time. Add water, ice, and/or milk to your liking, and you have a latte, an espresso-esque shot, an iced coffee, whatever your heart desires. Several Fast Company editors gave the original offering a taste test last year, and the results were unanimous: They loved it.
Now Jot Dark joins the mix: an (obviously) darker, bolder version of the original, made with Fair Trade Colombia and Sumatra coffee. Like its predecessor, Jot Dark is brewed using a temperature-controlled extraction process that gives it more potency than your standard freeze-dried instant coffee product. A $24 bottle is 200 ml and contains 14 servings of Jot.
I’m a big fan of regular Jot, which is far superior to any standard cup of coffee I can make at home. Jot Dark prepares just as well as the original: I like mine over ice with a healthy splash of Joi almond milk. It’s smooth, balanced, and doesn’t contain any unpleasantly acidic or bitter flavors. A single tablespoon is all you need, each contains around 140 milligrams of caffeine. (A typical 8 ounce coffee contains 95 milligrams of caffeine.) Measured and swirled into your mixer of choice, you have a delicious cup of coffee. No contraptions, no beans to grind, no water to perfectly heat.
Jot Dark is (obviously) a deeper profile than Jot’s original flavor. It’s more woody, syrupy, chicory-ish, like New Orleans-style coffee. Lovers of cold brew will probably find it more satisfying than the original, which lives more in the realm of a traditional iced coffee—rich and creamy.
In terms of flavor, I’m more keen on Jot Original, but that’s just my preference. I like my coffee light, bright, and easy to down within my three-block walk to the subway. But Jot Dark is a welcome addition to my kitchen. It’s a powerful, multidimensional flavor makes for stellar espresso martinis and affogato. (Yes, you can pour a tablespoon of Jot over vanilla ice cream and have a great little party.) Most notably, I’ve found that putting a tablespoon (or two, if I want to be awake for the next 72 hours or so) into my Hydro Flask with ice before work keeps me from sneaking off to the coffee shop. I add water from the cooler once I get there and have desk-side access to reliably delicious iced coffee all day long.
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