01. Portuguese Cork

The precious and versatile vegetable tissue known as cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber or as the Portuguese call it sobreiro).  Cork (cortiça) is most easily stripped off the tree in late spring and summer when the cells are turgid and fragile and tear without being damaged. The tree quickly forms new layers of cork and restores its protective barrier.  No tree is cut down. This simple fact makes cork harvesting exceptionally sustainable, leading to a unique balance between people and nature.

Cork has a structure that you can compare with that from a honeycomb.  Every cm2 consists of approximately 40 million cells.  These cells, as well as the spaces inbetween, are filled with a kind of gass resembling air, without CO2.  Thus the corkcells work as small sound and heat insulators and absorb pressure and shocks.  This is what makes cork so remarkable.  Up till today there has not been found any other material which combines the same characteristics as cork does.