The Driftwood Bowls offered by Harvesting History Heirlooms are an exceptional partnering of some of Nature’s most artistic creations with some of mankind’s most gifted glass artisans. The pairing produces some of the loveliest creations we have ever seen.

The story behind these terrariums is that they were designed and crafted in Bali, Indonesia. The bases are teak wood root – the only part of the teak wood tree that has, until now, had no commercial use. Teak has a very high oil content and because of this, Teak has the highest decay resistance of all natural wood products. The trees grow to 130 feet and are usually harvested when they are 40-80 years old. After harvesting, the wood is allowed to dry for 1-2 years before being worked.

All parts of the Teak tree are used for boat building, furniture building, carvings, frames, etc., that is, except for the teak root. A community of Balinese artisanal glass blowers recognized that they could cut the root into small pieces and fashion it into bases for their hand-blown glass bowls. Only teak wood could be used because it is so dense and impervious to water that when the molten glass is placed upon the teak wood surface, the wood does not explode. All other woods contain air and moisture and will explode if they come in contact with molten glass. The result was stunning, one-of-a-kind, artistic creations.