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.

Unlike typical koa inlay rings where the wood is fitted in sections, this piece of koai‘a is actually one solid piece of wood with no break, which allows for an uninterrupted surface the whole way around the ring.