Corky Business

Eric and the rest of the embassy community had the day off on Columbus Day.  The Community Liaison Office (CLO) organized a tour at a cork factory an hour outside of Lisbon.  The CLO person in charge of the embassy newsletter asked me to write and article about the experience, so here it is:

"We’re All a Little Quirky Corky" 

(This title is inspired by a corny joke Eric made while at the factory.)

Shoes, coasters, flooring, insulation, umbrellas.  Cork is used in products ranging from fashion to space exploration.  Last Monday, Embassy employees and friends were enlightened about the versatile material on a CLO-sponsored trip to the Amorim-Coruche Cork Factory, which is part of the largest company in the industry and located in the top cork-producing country in the world.  We then experienced the benefits of cork as stoppers while we (the collective "we," not Eric and me...of course) sipped wine with lunch at Sabores de Coruche.

The factory is located in the town of Coruche, about an hour drive northeast of Lisbon.  As the group drove into the town, we were greeted by hectares of cork oak trees along the road side, their fresh, light trunks bearing the signs of harvesting. 

Once at Amorim, everyone gathered in a meeting room at the Coruche Industrial Unit’s office. 
Before leading us on the tour through the two industrial units of the Amorim-Coruche Cork Factory, Carlos, a PR manager, gave an enjoyably informative introduction to cork, explaining the environmental and financial sustainability cork naturally yields. 

Thoroughly amused.

After walking through rows of harvested cork oak bark that, as Carlos put it, filled “football fields” of space, we entered the Coruche Industrial Unit where the bark is cleaned, inspected, sorted, and either cut into small, thin disks for champagne bottle stoppers or sent to other units to be prepared into other cork products.

  

Cork hat.  Very trendy.

Stacks of cork that had been boiled to be more pliable.

Upon completing the first portion of the tour, we took a short two-minute drive down the road to the Equipar Industrial Unit, where we observed the production of cork stoppers.  The factory smelled like a campfire due to the burning of beverage company logos onto stoppers.

 

Throughout the entire tour, everybody in the embassy group was able to experience the cork process hands-on and even collect a few cork souvenirs, such as bark pieces and finished stoppers.

To top it all off, Amorim treated all of us to a meal at a local restaurant, Sabores de Coruche, which serves traditional Portuguese food:  peixinhos da horta (fried, batter-coated green beans), seafood pate, black pig pork, and goat butter with breads.  Carlos joined us for lunch and informally continued his tour to those sitting around him by showing a seared insignia of an “A” inside of a small triangle—the emblem of Amorim—on a cork stopper from a bottle of white wine. 

Cork furniture at the restaurant.

The trip to Coruche provided us with opportunities not only to learn about cork—its benefits to Portugal and the process of its production—but also to experience an alternative, lesser-known piece of Portuguese life while among good company.