I've had these cups for several years. They are another addition to my household crafted by the Lopez family, the same craftsmen who carved the wooden spatulas I wrote about a couple of stories ago.
The cups are about the size of a grown man's fist. Each one is carved from a chunk of rosewood. Of all the rosewood things I have brought home from Nicaragua's southern autonomous region, I've never had a piece of rosewood so dark and in which the 'rose' in rosewood is so clearly exhibited. There's a patch of that rather incredible color in each cup.
Other than a light coating of linseed oil these cups have had no treatment. Long ago I asked that the Lopez family leave untreated any wood thing they make for me. I asked for that after I learned that lots of handcrafted wooden items, most everywhere, are routinely stained with shoe polish...including things made of rosewood.
I recently pulled these out of storage and hit them briefly with very fine sandpaper. I'm getting ready to coat the inside of the cups with clear food grade epoxy and for sure some epoxy will go where it's not supposed to go...so I'll be using the sandpaper again in a couple of weeks.
No problem.
