Coffee Bean wood?

[Rick Gooden]

I just picked up a load of oak, hickory, maple, and poplar at my local lumber yard. I asked if they had anything else that I should get and was told they had some "coffee bean". Never heard of it but I bought some. Seems to be hard like hickory, very clear with grain that resembles sassafras without the color. Is anyone familiar with this wood? Can you tell me anything about it. It was harvested locally in Southern Indiana.

[alex grams]

Not sure of any answers, but i have some of the same questions. I have about a 6-7" radius chunk of kona coffee trunk i picked up on my honeymoon in Hawai'i. It has been dried and no cracks or splits. I am going to cut it in half height wise, then rip it in half length wise and clean it and stain it to make some bookends. I'm going to take a pressure washer to it first to clean off some of the loose bark, but beyond that, this will be a new experience for me.

[mark page]

I wonder if they are talking about catalpa wood. We used to call them coffee bean trees when we were kids. You can do a google search and check out the grain pattern and colors.

[Lee Schierer]

I thought that coffee grew on bushes. Didn't know they would get large enough to be called trees. Juan Valdez never showed any that large in his commercials.

[Joe Meazle]

Might be kentucky Coffee Tree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_coffeetree

[josh bjork]

I had a bit of it. It looked like this http://starcraftcustombuilders.com/nebraska.woods.kentuckycoffeetree.htm It is really pretty but the grain is the opposite of interlocked, I'm not sure what that would be called. It splits very easy(at least mine did. If the grain got running diagonal across a board, the corner would break off easily. It takes a nice polished look if you get that far.

[Rick Gooden]

Thank you, it appears to be the Kentucky Coffeetree, now we'll see how it works.

[Larry Browning]

My dad used to have quite a bit of what he called coffeebean wood that he made all sorts of things out of. It was a very light colored wood with a pretty tight grain. He said it came from the trees that had those long bean pods that were maybe 18 inches or so long. This sounds like what you are talking about. The leg assembly/base of my current workbench that he made for me 40 years ago is made of this coffeebean wood.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Well, they beat me to it again....just got home from work. :)

I was going to say Kentucky Coffee Tree. I've never seen one, as they don't grow this far west, or maybe south, or maybe southwest :), and have never worked any of the wood. I thought we were going to get some from Oklahoma last year but the job never materialized.

The coffee tree is a legume, meaning it has pods with seeds and the seeds have been used as a coffee substitute.....like chicory.

[Todd Reinbold]

I picked up 150 bd ft. of it last fall on a whim while
I was buying walnut. It reminds me alot of red oak. I've only planed one of the boards just to see what it looked like with some linseed oil on it. I like it , but still have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet. My name is Todd and I'm a wood hoarder.

[Jim Becker]

I've seen it on a number of turnings, but not on flat-work, to date.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Well, they beat me to it again....just got home from work. :)

I was going to say Kentucky Coffee Tree. I've never seen one, as they don't grow this far west, or maybe south, or maybe southwest :), and have never worked any of the wood. I thought we were going to get some from Oklahoma last year but the job never materialized.

The coffee tree is a legume, meaning it has pods with seeds and the seeds have been used as a coffee substitute.....like chicory.


Depending on how you read that, just my $.02, chicory isn't a legume.:D

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Guess I should have worded the sentence differently. Chicory is a coffee substitute but I don't know where it falls botanically. :o

[Rob Will]

Hey Rick,
Woodworkers in Kentucky are supposed to be getting a royalty on that stuff!!!!;)
Catalpa would be fairly light weight and split easily. Must be KY Coffeetree(?)
Rob

[Joe Spear]

Chicory is a type of endive. The roots are roasted, ground, and added to coffee to stretch it--or just because the drinkers like it, for example, in Louisiana and parts of Europe. Kentucky coffee tree is a legume, related to the locust trees, acacias, peas, beans, clover, alfalfa, and many other plants . The seeds are in long pods--like locust trees--and are roasted, ground, and brewed. Supposedly, the stuff tastes pretty bad and can be poisonous if consumed in large quantities. I don't know how useful the wood is.

[Tom Sontag]

Catalpa is not the same species as KY Coffee Tree. Besides, we called catalpa "cigar tree" because the seed pods looked like long cigars.

I have had some KY Coffee boards sitting right next to some honey locust boards and they could be hard to tell apart. KY Coffee, when dry, is as hard, heavy and rot resistant as white oak. It has some tea stain-like color with a creamy sapwood. It has a less ring porous annual ring than white oak but still has that slightly coarse grain that keeps it from being a high end furniture wood choice, but I like working it. Plain sawn, I find it a more attractive choice and great substitute for white oak; use it as you would oak.