The best machete for opening coconuts.

A common question and a natural starting point for anyone wanting to process coconuts at home. Ask a hundred coconut choppers around the globe and likely you’ll get a hundred different answers. Everyone has their excalibur, or at least they used to. Sadly most households in Hawaii today don't open many coconuts and the machete has been pushed to the back corner of the garage.

Rarely used, most people's machetes are clunky, dull and in our opinion poorly balanced. Too heavy and a machete will wear your body down, too thin it'll bend or get stuck halfway through a coconut. And while even an old rusty machete CAN technically open a coconut, over time using such a blade will wear on your wrists, elbows and hands. More swings opening each coconut = more risk to your body. If you want to process coconuts quickly, you want a great machete.

At our farm safety and efficiency prioritize the decision making process. Opening hundreds of coconuts a month for a decade will do that to you. The ideal machete should be sharp, keep its edge, never rust and grip ergonomically into your hand. Ideally it never gets stuck in a coconut, is light and feels like a natural extension of your own arm. Having a sense of where the blade is in space will give you the confidence to swing firmly and accurately.

Our favorite - the "Kukuri" by Ka-Bar in action

We tried dozens of machetes over the years. Collecting and testing ones from Fiji, Bali, Mexico and Hawaii. Some were sold as cane knifes, others resembled battle axes or pirate swords. One shape and brand in particular stood out and eventually became the go-to blade at our farm.

The story of how the blade came to us is worth telling, as the man who introduced us is as exceptional as the machete. Shout out to Yukon, an ex-marine and military wilderness survival school graduate who was vacationing on Maui for a few weeks. He wasn't supposed to talk about it but he had just finished filming a tv show called Naked and Afraid, where he was dropped in the Florida everglades with literally nothing but his machete. He had instructions from the producers to lay low and stay out of the public eye until it aired. A mutual friend suggested we take him out coconut harvesting, convincing us that he was a hard worker.

He brought with him an upbeat attitude and the ultimate coconut opening machine. Skeptical at first of any new blade (we’d tried so many already) one swing and instantly - we knew it was perfect. Smoother, cleaner cuts through the husk and shell meant less chopping. The weekly task of processing coconuts immediately got faster, easier and safer.

The shape of the blade creates an incredibly balanced, easy to handle weight distribution. That is no accident, the kukuri was developed and perfected by farmers of the sub Indian continent as a tool specifically for chopping. Someone must have realized it worked great for chopping people too because soon the armies of Britain, India and Nepal made it standard issue. During World War I and II soldiers on both sides used it and as Yukon explained to me - it remains the standard issue blade for marines deployed where they may require such tool.

Many knife makers produce Kukuri’s. The term describes the shape, not the maker. The company which made Yukon’s was KA-BAR. I ordered one that night. The term “military grade” gets thrown around quite a bit, but this felt real. Within a few months many of my coconut climbing friends were using them too. Going on 10+ years of using it i can say, without a doubt - it holds its edge very, very well. We currently have 3 in rotation, one in the kitchen, one in the truck and one for on the farm. You can order one here.

Note - We have no sponsorship or endorsement agreement with KA-BAR, we write this simply because it works incredibly well for us and we hope that it will increase your household’s coconut intake. You can learn more about chopping coconuts through our online coconut cooking class which is 100% free, or by visiting our farm in person and taking a farm tour. Thank you for reading, much love from our farm!