Cork is the bark of the cork oak ,which means that it is 100% natural plant tissue. It consists of a honeycomb of microscopic cells filled with a air-like gas and coated mainly with suberin and lignin. Other compounds are identified in its chemical composition, although in less quantity, such as polysaccharides, ceroids and tannins.
A single cubic centimetre of cork contains almost 40 million cells - around 800 million in a single natural cork stopper.
"Harvested every nine years, without any tree being felled during the process, cork gives rise to an endless array of products, from the traditional to the most innovative and unexpected. The main product is the cork stopper, but not all cork qualifies to be transformed into that noble object."
It takes each cork oak 25 years before it can be stripped for the first time and it is only from the third stripping (at 43 years of age) that the cork, then known as «amadia», has the high standard of quality required for producing cork stoppers. The first two harvests – the «virgin» cork and «secundeira» cork –, as well as that removed from the base of the tree, becomes the raw material for insulation, flooring and products for areas as diverse as construction, fashion, design, health, energy production and the aerospace industry.