What is Guayacán and why should you buy it?
It took 20+ years of traveling to Colombia to develop a flair for the obvious.
Blinded by European and American consumer habits and tastes, people, myself included, tend to perceive goods they see in countries with emerging economies as “colorful,” “pretty,” “different,” and maybe even “interesting,” but rarely as “better” than what they are used to buying in Europe or the United States.
Shopping with my mother in Cali in the early 2000s – she had lived in New York and Vienna for almost 20 years, before returning to Cali - we stopped to look at handbags in an upmarket store. She pointed out two or three models that appealed to her and asked, “don’t you think these would sell in Vienna?” I agreed that the quality of the leather seemed to be excellent, as well as the workmanship, but despite my ignorance about handbags, I automatically felt I had to object somehow, so I said, “I think the problem is that the designs here aren’t in line with what women are buying in Europe these days.”
Fast forward to 2022 and my first trip back to Colombia after the pandemic. On one of my last days in Cali, I went out looking for gifts for my friends in Vienna. I was looking around with my uncle, who like my mother knew Europe and the United States pretty well. We were eating at the “Galeria de la Alameda” one of Cali’s many market halls that offer any and everything, when he suggested, “go check out the stand over there on the corner, next to the butcher’s shop. It is run by Venezuelan refugees, they have some really well-made stuff.”
Sure enough, I noticed that everything was made of a richly grained wood in all shades of brown, from pale to dark, some both pale and dark, some with a dark speckled grain on a lighter surface and some entirely in a rich, dark brown th at looks like melted dark chocolate. They all had one thing in common, their density and weight could be felt. I immediately knew I was handling wood that is superior to anything I have seen in Europe or the United States.
When I got to Vienna, my friends who received the very first salad servers I bought were all very happy with their gifts and agreed that the wood was beautiful and unlike anything else. The young man at the stand also gave me a long thin cocktail mixing spoon and a little spatula as free add-ons, when I bought those first sets.
Another three years later I woke up on New Year’s Day 2025. I surveyed the dishes and pans I had to clean up from the night before and noticed one pan had some dry, encrusted grease on it. I fretted about having to clean it. Then I noticed the little spatula close by. In my laziness, I risked scraping the grease with it, figuring I could always buy a new spatula if it cracked or something. Not a chance. It scraped and broke through the dry grease as effortlessly as if it were made of metal. I realized this was not your average wood kitchen utensil.
Still very impressed after cleaning up, I sat down to research Guayacán wood and wood hardness tables. The longer I checked figures and compared different wood types, the clearer it became: Guayacán, or Curarí as the Venezuelans call it, is one of the hardest commercially available types of wood. It is far superior to any common wood types in Europe and the United States. It is also uniquely beautiful and extremely long lasting.
In South America, Guayacán trees grow along the coastal regions of Venezuela, and Colombia. They can also be found in Middle American countries such as Panamá, Costa Rica, Guatemala and parts of Mexico. For UMANUM it is important to work with Venezuelan refugees in Cali. By working with experienced Venezuelan craftsmen who grew up with Guayacán, we hope to bring attention to the refugee crisis and more recently, to the earthquakes that have affected both countries. UMANUM aims to support both the people and these two countries as they recover from their crises. In doing so, we hope to generate enough revenue to start a professional workshop in Cali that allows them to expand their wood working expertise and work towards a stable future, doing what they know best: how to work with some of the world`s most beautiful and hardest wood.
Watch our videos, get an impression of the wood workers’ daily life in Cali, follow us on Instagram for more up to date information on their work and projects and most of all, support them by buying UMANUM products.