The Cervo Volante eco-friendly sources of tannin Depending on the species, ten to thirty years are necessary to allow the trees to produce a satisfactory concentration in tannins. The picking generally takes place in spring, when the polyphenols are the most concentrated and the bark easy to peel. Indeed, both types of tannins tend to accumulate in this organ to act as a chemical barrier against intruding microorganisms. Nowadays, the vegetable tanning industry mainly exploits the barks of various trees. In the Chinese gallnut of the sumac tree ( Rhus chinensis) for instance, concentrations sometimes reach 70%! From a phytochemical point of view, the so-called “condensed tannins” are found in most plant groups, including ferns, gymnosperms or angiosperms, whereas “hydrolysable tannins” solely occur in some families of the dicotyledons. Under stressful conditions like herbivory or insect egg deposition, plants can further amass polyphenols locally or induce the formation of special, extremely tannin-rich swelling named galls. Tannins naturally occur in a vast number of plant species and mainly accumulate in the roots, barks, leaves, fruits and seeds, to reach an average concentration of 2-5% of fresh weight in the given tissues. Valonia oak Quercus macrolepis acorn cups are handpicked in Turkeyįor the chemist, the terminology “tannin” simply refers to phenolic compounds that are small enough to be water-soluble but sufficiently large to link with chains of proteins like collagen… Tannins are actually a set of complex secondary metabolites that often bear barbaric names – “hexahydroxydiphenoyl ester”, “proanthocyanidin”, “phloroglucinol”, to cite but a few – and whose classification has greatly changed over the past fifty years. Etymologically, the term may derive from the Celtic word “tan” meaning “oak” thereby denoting the long-standing, traditional use of this tree in the tanning industry. This unusual property is of great importance in agriculture (humic acid formation, upgrade of fodder…), ecology (plant defence…), food technology (brewery and oenology…), pharmacy (drugs against diarrhoea, dermatitis, infection, wounds…) or tannery (transformation of rawhides into resistant and durable leather). The word “tannin”, proposed in the late 18 th Century, designates a set of natural chemicals that have the predisposition to interact with nitrogen-bearing molecules like alkaloids or proteins. Before exploring all those benchmarks in more details, it seems important to first define the central actors of this story – the “ tannins” – and to get acquainted with the main plants that produce and accumulate them. Cervo Volante has indeed developed a “fully vegetable” tanning procedure, based upon herbal compounds called “tannins”, instead of toxic chromium-sulfate used by ninety percent of the tanneries worldwide! With regard to pelt treatment, tannins are not as stringent as chrome… They are, however, completely innocuous for the local workforce and far less damaging for the environment! Since all tannin sources are not equally eco-friendly, Cervo Volante has chosen to only use resources that match a series of strict criteria in terms of sustainability and nature conservation. The 100% natural Cervo Volante leather derives from wild deer rawhides devoid of any synthetic chemicals and therefore harmless to both human health and Mother Nature.
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