The ever-interesting J-Walk Blog writes about a site which features, you guessed it, Young Coconuts:

I guess all of the coconuts I’ve eaten have been old coconuts.

Indeed, all coconuts I’ve seen in the US are old (ripe) coconuts – they’re usually sold with the hard brown shell exposed, have relatively little milky-white water, and the white flesh inside is about 10 mm thick. The site talks at some length about the superior virtues of “young” coconuts and then directs you to look for them at an Asian or Mexican market. Failing that, they offer to ship coconuts in from Thailand.

Here’s a picture from the site:

They apparently whittle the coconut down to a candle-like shape before shipping. Here in Brazil you usually buy what they call “green” coconuts, as shown in the background above. Also, from the picture I deduce that their coconuts are older than we’re used to here; green coconuts have even less flesh than those, often it’s just a millimeter-thick layer of transparent jelly. But the water is very abundant and completely transparent.

Their prices are of course outrageous: US$7.99 for one, US$46.99 for a case of nine… we pay between US$0.17 and US$0.30 each at the local fruit market. This already has a few thousand Km shipping (by truck) built in, as they usually come from the north-east coast.