How can you tell if a young coconut is bad?

[sherahtaylor]

I raided my local Asian market (never been there before!) and got five of them. I didn't know what to look for, so I just grabbed five off of the shelf. When I got home, I noticed three are a little mushy on the bottom. Upon opening the first one, the biggest (not a mushy one), I was expecting this wonderful coconut taste & smell that everyone keeps raving about.

Is the coconut meat supposed to be mushy, like sour cream consistency? It definitely doesn't taste that yummy, not really like the coconut I'm used to....I'm hoping I just got a bad one, because this is something I'm going to have to force myself to eat just to get rid of the five I bought. So disappointing!! :(

[mcasburn]

The meat should be white and have a firm, jelly-like texture. The water should be whitish-clear. If either are pink, your coconut is bad.

One way I know of to tell if they're bad is if they have tiny black spots on the outside, which are mold. There might be other ways to tell, and I'm also very interested in getting more info on this.