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Comment by padthai | Hacker News Reader

Coconut water was always very popular as soft drink in producing countries. Not waste.

In Brazil, it’s a traditional remedy if you have a bad stomach. It’s also sold at a lot of tourist destinations fresh from the coconut as it’s very refreshing.

Common, but in somewhat limited quantities.

"Anecdotal sources describe coconut water is used in India for the senicide of elderly people, a procedure known as thalaikoothal.[13] In this custom, the elderly person is made to drink an excessive amount of coconut water, eventually resulting in fever and death, the exact causes of which have not been determined.[13]"

I'm not sure what your point is here.

It's well-known that green coconut vendors are very common in India (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tender_coconut_vendo...). They have a cart of coconuts, chop the top off of one as you watch, and hand it to you to drink. As a tourist, it seemed to me to be safer than drinking water.

So, to the original point above, coconut water is not waste, and is quite refreshing, and fills a useful niche if you're worried about stomach bugs.

I agree it's a common drink, but much like orange juice it's not good in large quantities. So, the reason it ended up as a waste product was supply vastly outstripped demand.

In Brazil is extremely common, at least in the south: during the summer you can buy cold green coconuts pretty much everywhere, but specially in the coast; I used to drink it almost daily.

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