Koai‘a Inlay Maile Lei Ring

August 2024
18 karat gold, koai‘a

A client came to me looking for a special koa-inlay ring. This type of jewelry is generally easy to find in Hawai‘i, but he wanted something that also had a pattern on the inside of the shank—which is far less common.

After discussing various options, we settled on a maile lei with pikake bas relief for the interior pattern. I didn't have any koa in stock, but I did have some incredibly beautiful koai‘a. Frequently mislabeled as "chocolate koa," koai‘a is Hawai‘i's other endemic acacia species. It's typically a lowland tree, and its wood is darker in color with a tighter, denser grain than its sister species—so dense that it actually sinks in water. I brought a sample piece to our initial meeting and he approved it on the spot.