Tea tray 03 Oak VH

width 22.8 cm x 42.5 cm, height 2 cm
oak wood with touches of jack plane

Oak wood has many unique properties. It is very tough, hard, water- and weather-proof thanks to the content of tannins. Their presence in oak wood is used by food industry − for making barriques. Tannins are also used for easy darkening of oak wood. Oak is quite hard to bend. Its wood is fibrous and porous. It has wide vessels – its capillaries, which supply nutrient solutions, are visible by the naked eye. Oak wood has typical medullary rays − lines or areas with very dense, hard and lustrous wood in the cross-section. The rays can be very decorative when the wood is cut correctly. I’ve met people who considered them a “flaw” of oak wood… quite the opposite! The rays stand out in radially cut wood − the highest quality material that can be obtained from a trunk. My trays are made of wood from trees that grew near Jindřichův Hradec.