Types of teak: from Javanese plantation teak to vintage

There’s only one teak tree: Tectona grandis. So what’s sold in the shop as a “type” of teak tells you something else: where the wood grew, how (plantation or natural forest), whether it’s had a second life, or what style or period the furniture belongs to. This page lists those names and sends you on to the page where you can read more. What teak is as a timber is covered in teak wood.

At a glance

You see	What it tells you	Read more
Javanese or Indonesian teak, jati	origin: Java, Indonesia	below, and teak grades
Burmese, Burma, Rangoon or Myanmar teak	origin: Myanmar, part of the natural range	below, and teak wood
Plantation teak	how it was grown	teak grades
Reclaimed or old teak	reused wood	reclaimed teak, old teak
Vintage teak	Danish design from the 1950s and 1960s	vintage teak
Colonial teak	a style, not an age	colonial teak
FSC teak	a label, not a type	FSC teak

Teak by origin

Javanese and Indonesian teak

The Queensland Government lists Indonesia among the countries where teak is grown in plantations (Business Queensland). On Java and Madura, the state forest enterprise Perum Perhutani manages the state forests; an FAO publication from the 1990s describes more than a million hectares (about 2.5 million acres) of teak plantation with a rotation of 40 to 80 years (FAO). The Dutch furniture maker Souren writes that those plantations were laid out in the time of the Dutch East Indies (Souren Meubels, Dutch).

Besides state forest, there’s teak from community plantations. A study in Annals of Forest Science compared Javanese teak from state forest, felled after 40 to 60 years, with teak from community plantations, felled after 7 to 10 years (Rizanti et al., 2018). So “Javanese” doesn’t yet tell you how old the tree was. What that means for the wood is covered in teak grades.

In Indonesia itself, teak is called jati or kayu jati, including plantation teak (Teaktafels.nl, Dutch).

India and Myanmar: the natural range

Teak grows naturally in the monsoon forests of India, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam (Business Queensland). Trade names such as Burma teak and Rangoon teak refer to Myanmar (Centrum Hout, Dutch). Whether, and under what conditions, wood from Myanmar may be placed on the EU market is a legal question we cover on teak wood. With Burmese teak, always ask further about origin and documents.

Plantations elsewhere

Centrum Hout mentions planting in tropical Africa and tropical America (Centrum Hout, Dutch), and the Queensland Government also the West Indies (Business Queensland).

Plantation or natural forest

Centrum Hout puts teak from its natural range in durability class 1, and teak from plantations outside it in class 1 to 3 (Centrum Hout, Dutch). So plantation teak isn’t worse by definition, but it varies more. The age of the tree at felling weighs heavily here; we work that out in teak grades.

Teak with a second life, a style or a period

• Reclaimed and old teak. According to the Dutch retailer Teaktafels.nl, both mean the same thing: previously used teak, mainly from Java, from buildings that are no longer in use (Teaktafels.nl, Dutch). Where that wood comes from and what you can check about it is in reclaimed teak; the trade names and finishes in old teak.
• Vintage teak. This is about design: mainly Danish furniture from the 1950s and 1960s. Designmuseum Danmark dates Danish Modern’s international breakthrough to 1949 (Designmuseum Danmark). How to recognise a genuine piece: vintage teak.
• Colonial teak. A style: teak stained dark, from reddish brown to almost black (Teakhuis, Dutch), often with mouldings (Teak en Wood, Dutch), and usually from Indonesia (Teaktafels.nl, Dutch). It says little about age. More in colonial teak.

And FSC?

FSC isn’t a type of teak but a label that can in principle appear on any of the types above. What the labels do and don’t say is in FSC teak.

Three questions that always work

1. Which country does the wood come from? A country, not just a trade name.
2. New or reused? And with new wood: plantation or natural forest, and how old were the trees?
3. Is the name about the wood, or about the style? “Vintage” and “colonial” say something about the furniture, not about the wood.