How cork bark is harvested

Cork is peeled off living oaks with hand axes, and the same tree grows a new layer.

stations: 3
things downstream: 4

The short version

Cork is the thick outer bark of the cork oak, peeled by hand with a small axe in summer while the tree keeps standing. A tree can be stripped first at about 25 years old and again every nine years or so. The first harvests are rough, and bark good enough for wine stoppers comes later.

Wait for the thick bark

The cork oak grows slowly in warm Mediterranean forests. It is ready for its first stripping at roughly 25 years old, when the trunk reaches about 60 centimeters around.

first harvest around 25 years
Peel the bark with axes

A crew of about five people cuts the bark into planks with small axes. Stripping only happens from May to August, when the bark separates cleanly without hurting the tree.

May to August only
Stack the planks to dry

The planks are carried out by hand because the forests are hard to reach by vehicle. They are piled in the forest or a factory yard and left to dry before shipping.

End of the lineCork oak bark Next it goes into wine cork, fishing rod, flute.

Worth repeating

Cork oaks can live for about 300 years and keep growing new bark after each stripping.
Cork is made of dead cells filled with an air-like gas, which is why it springs back after being squeezed.
Portugal manages about 34 percent of the Mediterranean cork oak forest and produces about half of the world's cork.