How to make your own Coconut Bowl!

My tools of the trade! Machete, leatherman, sandpaper,
coconut oil, and block oil

How to make your own Coconut Bowl!

1) acquire coconut. 

2) if the coconut is not peeled like the one in the photo.... peel it. My husband uses the machete and the leatherman to pull strips off. 

3) Ok now you have a coconut ready for draining. Poke out the "false eye" its the one that feels/looks different

4) allow the coconut water to drain into a bowl or container. Drink it! Cook with it! I recommend cooking white rice in it and sprinkle the rice with cinnamon 

5) now you are ready to open the coconut. There are several ways to do this. First there is sawing it open, and second there is hitting it until it breaks open naturally. Although this second method does not guarantee nice even halves. 

6) Now you have a coconut that is open and full of yummy coconut meat! There are also several tricks for removing it. We put the halves in the fridge for a bit and then use a screwdriver or butter knife to get between he shell and meet and pry it out! 

7) Ok now you also have yummy coconut meat and are ready to start on the shells to make the bowls. I know we already are at step 7. Go ahead take a break and enjoy the soils so far!

8) take one half, and the largest grit sand paper you have! I use a "Craft" set so it is about 80 grit. Remove the large hairy outside stuff. I tried steel wool for this as well but the sand paper works the best. Sand it down so you have a nice even dark brown color all over the outside. 

9) take that same grit and start working on the inside as well. 

10) grab the smaller grit and repeat on the outside and inside

11) grab your smallest and finest grit sand paper and give the outside and inside a polish. Your fingers should REALLY but hurting by now

12) let the halves dry out (or this can be step 7) 

13) I normally give it one last polish and then rinse and dry again

14) now apply some coconut oil or other block oil to the whole thing. It should soak in so give it a few more coats, mostly on the outside.

15) I use a butch block oil and finish on the inside because I know it is food safe and should give it a good seal. 

16) for the block oil apply 1 coat and let dry for 6 hrs

17) apply second coat after scoring the first coat with the fine grit sand paper

18) let dry for 72 hrs

19) wash the bowl

20) dry

21) one last layer of coconut oil on the outside

TADA! Of course you can also just buy one of mine ;)

Coconut Bowls - almost to the point where I can say I am almost finishing them

 The finishing of the insides is coming long! We got some of our tools with the latest visitors and I went to town on the inside of this one... went a little too far in one spot but this set is for me! Next step is to try and decide on a finish for the inside.

I wanted the inside to be "food safe" but with a little more oomph then just oil. So I set my husband doing some research and did some research of my own! I found this nifty site that had some snark (always a plus) and think I know what I am looking for now.

I think the winner is shellac. Now I just have to find some.... I hope I can find some in town! :) Wish me luck!

Mamaki Tea

Mamaki tea is made from the leaf of the Mamaki tree. Pipturus albidus or Mamaki is flower plant endemic to Hawaiian and in the nettle family. Growing up in the Pacific North West I am very familiar with another nettle, the stinging nettle. Even from a young age I knew that the stinging nettle had beneficial qualities, and could, if carefully harvested used as a salad green or made into tea. The photo to the left is an example of a small Mamaki I found while out in the woods. 


Before I get into Mamaki I figured it would be useful to detail some information about the stinging nettle in case you, my lovely reader, were not familiar with it. Stinging nettle gets its name from the hollow stinging hairs on its stems, and the undersides of its leaves. In order to harvest the plant without being stung, grab the leaves by the top so it folds in half and rub the bottom together. This squishes the stinging hairs. You can also use gloves. As a child in the NW I was always fearful that I was going to get stung anyways and even after long rubbings of the leaves it normally took a dare to get me to eat it. If while you are out you do end up getting stung, normally some sward fern grows next to nettle plants and the seeds of the underside of the sward fern can be used to relieve the sting. After bushwhacker through a ton of it one day growing up I also caked on mud and that helped. I am not familiar with the exact medical uses of the stinging nettle other than "its good for you", but it is also used as food, as a tea, and as a fiber to make textiles. 


Ok, now onto the star of this blog post. Mamaki! According to the "Hikers Guide to trail-side plants in Hawaii" (1) the mamaki is a "shrub or small tree up to 20 ft tall with coarse alternate broadly oval leaves that are ofter wide as they are long, come to a sharp point, and have small teeth along the edge. [...] The leaves are green above and often pale, almost white, with fine hairs, beneath. The veins often have a reddish tinge." This red vein in the leaves makes then very striking. You can see how it makes them stand out in the image above. "The Hawaiians used the fibrous inner bark of this plant to make one kind of kapa (fabric), and the mucilage from the bark was used to help glue layers of the kapa together. [...] A tea was made from the leaves and drunk as a tonic." 


That tea is what I am after. I have had some since moving here and it is AWESOME! The nettle tea I always made at home I felt tasted like grass. This has more of an herbal tea taste. So I gathered some leaves while I was out the other day and they have dried and I think tomorrow I am going to make some tea. 


I also bought a new Mamaki tree for my yard since the one we have is TALL and old and the nice looking leaves were hard to reach. 






1. Hall, John B., 2004, A Hikers Guide to Trailside Plants in Hawaii, Mutual Publishing. http://hikersguidetoplants.com/