Author here! Since the article publishing, I have found a widely available finish that's very similar to what I'm doing called Walrus Oil Furniture Butter: https://walrusoil.com/products/furniture-butter

It's still a combination of polymerizing oils, hard waxes and resin, it's just different plants (linseed instead of tung, pine resin instead of damar etc.) Again, no solvents, people say it smells good.

I still have way too much tung oil, wax and resin around because I could only buy high quantities, so I guess I'll keep using my own finish for a long while. But I'd love to hear from others how the Furniture Butter fares for wooden spoons and cups.