Sea coconut actually is not a coconut at all, but the fruit of the Palmyra palm. A tree plant native to India and Southeast Asia, with large fan-shaped leaves and tall, long trunks. Similar to the coconut, the Palmyra has many uses from leaves to bark, but its fruit is very different. Also protected by a hard husk, its size is slightly smaller, and mostly black in color. The top of the husk is cut to reveal the seed sockets, then the seeds’ yellow-brown skin is removed for the translucent pale-white edible flesh – naturally sweet with a coconut-like flavor and smooth jelly texture.

No one really knows why it’s called “sea coconut”. But Chinese folk tales say that a cluster of Palmyra fruits washed upon a Southern Chinese shore long ago, shaped like coconuts yet not of the local trees. And, after tasting the sweet jelly fruit, they were convinced it was a coconut variant that grew at the bottom of the sea and named it so. It would be centuries later that Palmyra was brought to China and cultivated there, but by then, the name had stuck.

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