I found this ethereal-looking white coconut on my last trip to Essex Food Market here in NYC. I had never seen a pure white skinned coconut before! So I had to buy one.
Mysterious Cloud Coconut. I don't know it's official name. White coconut? I'll call it a cloud coconut. Or angels breath coconut. It's so light and pure with its wispy blonde strands gracefully bowing outward. I've been doing extensive research trying to figure out where this exotic white coconut comes from and how it is different from a brown skinned coconut. And unfortunately, my research has left me with a lot of unanswered questions. If you google "white coconut" you will get either a pre-skinned Fresh Young Coconut (looks white) or the inside of a brown coconut. Sigh.
So check out a few more amazing photos of this mysterious fruit and please let me know if you have any insight to its origin!
Click ahead for more white coconut photos....
White Coconut Photos:
Anonymous says
I learned about this wonderful coconut 2 yrs. ago and it is WONDERFUL! I was in a cooking class at Progressive Medical where they use alternative medicine and get to the root of our problems. The coconut is from Thailand. If you google opening a white coconut you can find web site that will offer recipes, and videos on how to open both brown, white and green coconuts. It is well worth the research. Susie Stone Mountain, Georgia
Anonymous says
this coconut is from mexico I went out to the store and bought one today it is not a peeled young green coconut and it is not albino they are a little more expensive than a regular coconut they are just hard to find you can usually find them at special grocery stores i'll let you know if they taste any different....
Veggie Wedgie says
This looks like a de-husked coconut, not very young but not quite old enough to be brown! Did you open it? Seeing the flesh and tasting the coconut juice you could be sure what kind of coconut it iS! Post pictures of it opened! Or maybe Sojourner is right- I don;t have the experience of picking coconuts of the trees and preparing them, so I can't say for sure.
Sojourner says
If you're a big coconut fan, you might also be interested in what Anonymous refers to - the ball of coconut flesh that forms from the water when it begins to germinate. In Mexico, it's called a coconut apple. It's kind of like a coconut water sponge!
Anonymous says
Not weird at all, I agree with Sojourner and others, this is just a coconut in the intermediate aging stage. You have the young coconut that people normally drink juice from, then this one that has tougher fresh and shell, then the brown one that has the toughest shell and drier flesh, with not as much sweet juice left inside. If you take this yet another stage further, you'll get a germinating coconut that has a round ball of new flesh inside preparing to come out as a shoot. I discovered this by accident after a coconut's been left on the tree for too long. This tastes soft and slightly alcoholic to me, it was great, though.
Medini says
Hi Kathy,
"Chaitali" is exactly right!
"Yeah that's a fresh young coconut that's been peeled and air dried. The green outer husk is peeled off revealing the white semi-hardened shell. Its just a regular fresh coconut."
In India, especially Mumbai and the coastal regions of India, we drink a lot of fresh coconut water and it is the young green coconuts that are freshly peeled, cracked open and served. The inside is whilte...albino looking just like that.
Neat blog!
Best
Medini
Chaitali says
Yeah that's a fresh young coconut that's been peeled and air dried. The green outer husk is peeled off revealing the white semi-hardened shell. Its just a regular fresh coconut
Brown coconuts are coconuts that are allowed to mature on the coconut tree until the inner shell becomes hard. Instead of having a fresh green husk they have a dried out yellow/pale brown husk
Hope this helps!
Chaitali
Notachef says
OK...I think this is it. A peeled young, green coconut. Plus it has a nice idea for serving.
http://southeastasianfood.about.com/od/dessertsfruitsanddrinks/ss/OpenYoungCoco.htm
Notachef says
Another pic.
http://riceandspice.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/jamaican-locavore/
Notachef says
I suspect the previous comments about it being a younger stripped coconut are correct. I found a photo on flickr of a whole bunch of them from Saigon. Not a great picture, but they look similar.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramdiboy/2748846068/in/photostream/
Neal says
Yeah, that's not just a peeled young coconut. And I don't even think its a normal brown coconut. It could be albino. Or maybe bleached by the sun? It is a mystery to me. But its NOT a young coconut-you are right about that.
Marija says
Albino?
Kathy says
OK, now I'm intrigued. It seems-from the comments so far- that this coconut is just at an unusual stage in its age. Older than a fresh young coconut, but younger than a brown coconut?
It has the exact same shape, feel and texture as a brown coconut. It is nothing like a stripped away white fresh young coconut.
However, I must say that I still do think it is mysterious since I have never seen one like this before and I am an avid-coconut-junkie.
More info from commenters please!
Kathy
Anonymous says
My thoughts: That is just a regular coconut with the outer green cover taken off. The most likely reason it is not brown is b/c it was fan dried. Most older coconuts tend to come to the U.S. in that form with out the green outer shell.
Sojourner says
This is going to sound real dumb, but I don't think there's anything special about it. On a recent trip to Ixtapa, I had the opportunity to watch harvesters prepare coconuts right off the tree, and when they stripped the outer shell off, they looked like that - just all white. However, the ones that they had left in the sun to dry had turned the familiar brown-black. So I think it's just a matter of freshness.
VeganWoman says
That is beautiful!
megNY says
wow that's so crazy looking! Never seen one before. sorry! Meg