Suberra Cork

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Cork has been a popular and super sustainable flooring surface for over a century. Now, it is available as a slab to create innovative and sustainable vanities, kitchen tops, desks, and other work surfaces. Don’t forget that cork makes for great chair and bench seats. Warm to the touch, it’s the same reason that cork is a popular flooring option for cold climates.

Suberin, the waxy substance inside the cork that is also the product's namesake, makes it naturally heat and water resistant, antimicrobial, and insect repellent.

Sustainable: Suberra is made from compressed recycled cork pulp from wine-cork blanks. The cork is a natural, rapidly renewable resource--harvested every 9 years by scraping the bark of the Quercus suber oak tree in Portugal and Spain. These trees can live for hundreds of years, and the industry helps to keep 5 1/2 million acres from turning to desert. Harvesting schedules are set by law and Portugal even makes it a crime to cut the trees down.

Suberra is warm to the touch.

Suberra sheets are made up of the cork, polyurethane, water and oil. There is no added formaldehyde.

Slab size: 1-1/4" thick x 25" x 36" (total 6.25 square feet)

Fabrication guidelines:
  • Can be cut, sanded and routed with regular woodworking tools
  • Seam pieces together with Titebond III Wood Glue or another non-toxic yellow woodworkers glue
  • Hairline seams are difficult to detect because of the random "grain pattern"
  • Can be finished with a number of options, but the recommended choice is usually AFM Oil Wax or another natural oil-wax blend
  • Needs support underneath. It is not suitable for cantilevering or lengthy, unsupported spans. Undermount sinks should be hung from cabinets, not from the cork top.
  • While it is naturally durable, we would recommend using it in areas of less than heavy use and abuse.
Performance testing: Kohler did a pass-fail version of the ASTM stain tests on unfinished Suberra. In this version of the test, if a specific substance did not wipe off with just a damp cloth, they considered the test a failure. The Suberra test result was that it was fine with everything from citric acid and red wine to ethyl alcohol and coffee; only the harshest bleach chemicals and strongest pigments failed to wipe off without a cleaning solution. And, of course, finishing the surface adds protection.