(update: I had better luck with Coca Nara shortly after writing this post)

My first experience with Coco Nara was interesting.  First I was excited about the coals based on the description given on the box… then I couldn’t get the dang things to light!

Here’s some bullet points of the advantages of Coco Nara coals, as given by the packaging (all of which sound great):

• Made from Coconut shells (no trees were murdered)
• 100% natural
• Burns three times longer than other charcoals
• Leaves less than 4% ashes
• Easy to light
• Odorless and tasteless

Another good thing: a box of 16 of these little wonder coals was only $2.50 from the local market.

The fact that different coals require different levels of heat to get started, is never a problem for me since I’ve got an open-flame burner in the kitchen.   Usually it’s not a problem, that is.  Here are some pics of the coals right in the open flame:

I left the room to watch TV for a while and, when I came back, some of the edges were red.  For a lot of coals, this is enough to get started at least, so I put them on the bowl to tried to stoke them up a bit by inhaling through the hookah.

Result: They went cold in a about a minute.

My thought at the time was, “If I only hadn’t gotten rid of that blow torch…”   So I tried again to put them on the burner but again, after a while, in the interest of time gave up on the Coco Nara’s in favor of some good ‘ol Easy-Lite coals, which pretty much never fail.

Sure enough, here’s a picture of some the Easy-Lite coals after about 10 minutes on the burner:

I will try the Coco Nara coals again in the near future because:

• I don’t want my $2.50 to go to waste.
• I found a few accounts online of people who are apparently in love with these coals.
• Plus I found this video (and lots of others like it):

Related post here about lighting coals.   It’s possible that my stovetop burner is not ideal for Coco Nara coals… I’ll try again soon in any case.