Where does cork come from?

Cork is the bark of a Cork Oak. If you live in the States, you’re most likely familiar with a Beach or Chestnut tree which are both in the same family as a cork oak. The main difference between the cork oak and the chestnut and beach tree are three-fold. First, the bark of cork oak is significantly thicker and more resilient than those of other trees. Second, cork oak is native to the western Mediterranean basin, in countries such as: North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco), southern France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Third, a cork tree can grow in some of the most inhospitable and barren land you can possible imagine. I am intimately familiar with the last point, because my legs are still recovering from our walk into the cork oak fields two weeks after our trip. Somehow missing out on the memo to wear pants, I dressed in shorts with open sandals to keep relatively cool fearing another 40 degree Celsius day. And although my plan worked in theory, continually able to feel the ...  more

More than half the world’s tonnage of cork is produced in Portugal from plantations not just in Portugal but also in Spain and North Africa. Cork is also grown in many of the countries that border the Mediterranean. Cork is the outer bark of the cork oak (quercus suber) and is stripped from trees every 9 or 10 years around June. It has many applications apart from the stoppers for wine and champagne bottles plus our Tablemats, coasters, pot stands and trays. These include floor and wall coverings, handles for fishing rods and tennis rackets, cricket balls, shuttlecocks and other sports equipment; buoys, gaskets, pressure joints just to name a few, the list is endless!  more

Just about every tree has an outer layer of cork bark, but the cork oak (Quercus suber) is the primary source of most cork products in the world, including wine bottle stoppers. These trees primarily grow in countries that run along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where there's plenty of sunshine, low rainfall and high humidity. The countries that produce the most cork include Portugal, Algeria, Spain, Morocco, France, Italy and Tunisia. So, why does the cork oak have a thicker layer of cork bark than other trees? The tree evolved to protect itself from the harsh conditions of the forests near the Mediterranean. These forests experience frequent droughts, brush fires and temperature fluctuations. Cork is actually made of water-resistant <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/cell.htm">cells</a> that separate the outer bark from the delicate interior bark. It has a unique set of properties not found in any other naturally existing material. It is lightweight, rot resistant, ...  more

The corks you find sealing up bottles come from the bark of the cork oak, which grows in Spain, Portugal, and North Africa. This bark contains a waxy substance that keeps gases and liquids from passing through the wood. About half of every cork is made up of empty space. A piece of cork just one inch square contains about 200 million cells filled with air. It's those air cells that let a cork float and let it be squeezed to fit into a bottle. Once it's in the neck of the bottle, the cork swells to fill the opening, locking out air and moisture. About 600 million pounds of cork are produced each year, with the largest amount coming from Spain. But because so many bottles of wine are produced around the world, there are barely enough corks to go around! The longest flight by a cork popped from a champagne bottle is 102 feet, 11 inches!  more

Corks are produced from the bark of a tree grown in the western Mediterranean. It is unique in that it can be peeled from the tree without hurting the tree.  more

My corks all come from wine bottles. However they originally came from the cork oak tree.  more