Coffee Burl

[frazeeg]

I recently acquired a small hunk of coffee burl from my local hardwoods supplier. I've been trying to find anything I can about wood toxicity, hardness, flammability, and general resilience but have come up with nothing. This isn't really surprising since, as you might guess, coffee trees are preferred alive so they can produce their delicious, caffeinated seeds. It's not a common wood to find.

I found this toxicity site when searching the forum but it has nothing. I looked at another but don't have its URL. Also nothing.

Basically, has anyone ever heard of a pipe made of coffee wood or do you have any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Oliver5]

I'm new to this site but i've been browsing a lot on alternative wood.
tcfuller.com you might want to looked at. One of the pipe he made is of coffee burl, it seems to smoke fine.
And I think he's still alive, so I'm not sure about the toxicity level.

The burl you got..is it from an arabica or robusta tree?
Could you post the photo?

Cheers.

[frazeeg]

Is this the pipe you're talking about? I've emailed Fuller and waiting for a reply.

[frazeeg]

Reply from Tim Fuller:

The coffee burl is a fine wood for pipes. It works well and finishes well. I had no problems with the few pipes I built from it. I recently heard from the pipester who has one of them. He reported that the pipe is holding up well after many hundreds of smokes.

I couldn't find any data on toxicity of the coffee wood. Most species are probably no more toxic than tobacco. There are a few, such as cocobolo and aromatic cedar(too soft as well), which are known to be toxic, and thus not suitable for pipes.

Best wishes,
Tim Fuller

Time to make a couple pipes...

[Kada]

For what it is worth i have made a couple, not finished mind you, out of coffee root (arabica). it works well, but is certainly softer than briar! I have not had any reaction to it personally.