Tropical Traditions Announces New Organic Raw Coconut Water Vinegar

18/03/08 Tropical Traditions announced that they added Organic Raw Coconut Water Vinegar to their product line. It is believed to be the first product of its kind introduced to the US market, as vinegar made from the water inside of coconuts is a cottage industry in the Philippines, and not a commercial one. Water from the inside of coconuts is highly valued due to its high concentration of nutrients. In the Philippines and other tropical places, raw coconut water is often left in the open air to ferment, where it eventually turns into vinegar. The acidic environment prevents the growth of undesirable bacteria naturally. Tropical Traditions worked with professors at the University of the Philippines for several years to develop an incubation system that could produce clean coconut water vinegar from their certified organic coconuts and retain the mother of vinegar (a colony of bacteria cultures) as a truly raw product. The mother of vinegar is used to inoculate future batches of organic coconut water vinegar.

Unlike commercial distilled vinegars that are produced with white refined sugar, Tropical Traditions Coconut Water uses only certified organic Muscabado whole cane sugar in the fermentation of their vinegar, grown by a cooperative of small-scale family farmers in the Philippines. The sugar is also Fair Trade certified. Muscabado sugar is a whole sugar that is extracted from the sugar cane using traditional methods. It contains all the natural nutrients found in raw sugar cane or molasses.

In the Philippines most commercial "coconut vinegars" are not made from the nutrient-packed coconut water from inside the coconut, but from the sap of the coconut tree which is used to make lambanog, an alcoholic drink similar to vodka. These "coconut vinegars" are by-products of the lambanog industry. To make these products, one must harvest the sap of the coconut tree from the coconut flower bud, which would normally become a fruit-bearing coconut. Hence, trees dedicated to harvesting the sap for lambanog and the more common coconut vinegar will never produce coconuts. Tropical Traditions does NOT support coconut products that prevent coconut trees from bearing fruit. Coconut trees in the Philippines have been on the decline for decades, and the coconut oil from coconuts is also now valued as a fuel source in bio-diesel production, resulting in less coconut oil availability as a food source each year. Vinegar made from coconut water, however, does not sacrifice coconuts or coconut oil in its production, as it is collected from mature coconuts which are used to make coconut oil, and the same trees can continue producing coconuts year after year. Tropical Traditions is the first company to make a truly organic product from the water of organic coconuts which is raw and fermented with fair-trade organic Muscabado whole cane sugar.