Furniture, wood & rattan
Indonesian suar wood slabs
Suar, also sold as trembesi or rain tree, is the timber behind most Indonesian live-edge slab tables. It is wide, figured and cheap by the standards of slab timber. Whether a slab arrives flat is decided entirely by how it was dried, and that happens months before you see it.
How it leaves the country.
- Raw slabs
- Cut and dried, sold by the piece with the live edge intact. Sanding, filling and finishing happen at your end.
- Finished table tops
- Sanded, filled, finished and sometimes with resin work. More value added in Indonesia and a shorter path to sale.
- Bookmatched pairs
- Two slabs cut from the same log to mirror each other. Priced well above single slabs and worth confirming they came from the same log.
How it is graded.
There is no grade table. What decides value is width, length, figure, the number of natural voids and how well the piece was dried, and only the last of those is invisible in a photograph.
- Drying is the whole risk
- A slab that left Indonesia wet moves in a European or American interior. Cupping, splitting and opening joints all trace back to it, and none of it can be fixed on arrival.
- What to specify
- Thickness, minimum and maximum width and length, figure, acceptable voids and cracks, moisture at loading, and whether the piece is sanded or raw.
- Legality
- V-Legal document under SVLK, required for every wood product leaving Indonesia, for every destination1
How it is packed.
- Handling
- Slabs are heavy, awkward and easy to damage on the edge. Crating and how the pieces are separated matter more here than on almost any other wood product.
- Wood packaging
- Crates, pallets and dunnage are treated and marked under ISPM 15, separately from the slabs themselves2
Where it grows.
East Java
Java
Where most slab cutting and drying capacity sits, close to Surabaya and the export routes.
Central Java
Java
Workshops that finish slabs into tables, working alongside the wider furniture trade.
Bali
Bali
Finishing and design work aimed at hospitality and interiors, usually on material brought from Java.
Who buys this.
Choosing between this and something else.
Documentation, where applicable.
- V-Legal document
- Issued under SVLK. Required for wood products to every export destination, not only to Europe.1
- EUDR due diligence statement
- For the EU only. Wood is a listed commodity, so a slab is in scope and the plots behind it have to be traceable.3
- ISPM 15 treatment mark
- On the crating around the slabs, which is a separate question from the slabs themselves.2
- Certificate of origin
- Which form applies depends on the destination and on the preference scheme in force between it and Indonesia.
Questions buyers ask.
Why did my slab crack after delivery?
Almost certainly drying. Timber cut and shipped above the moisture it will settle at in a heated interior loses water and moves. The check that prevents it is a moisture reading before loading, and it is the single most useful thing to insist on.
Can I choose the actual slab?
Yes, and you should. Every slab is different, so buying to a description rather than to photographs of the specific pieces means accepting whatever comes. Ask for numbered photographs of the exact slabs and confirm those numbers on the packing list.
Is suar the same as monkey pod?
The same tree under different trade names. Suar, trembesi, rain tree and monkey pod all refer to Samanea saman. Naming the botanical species in the contract removes the ambiguity, because the trade names travel differently in different markets.
What does your service cost?
Five per cent of the order value, paid by you and never by the factory. A factory audit starts at $250 depending on location. We work with orders from $10,000 per shipment.
Worth reading.
Tell us what you need.
Give us the specification and the destination port. We come back with producer options and an indicative price. Our fee is 5 % of the order value, paid by you and never by the factory.
Sources
- 1SVLK, Indonesia's timber legality assurance system. FLEGT licence information service. Checked 3 August 2026.
- 2ISPM 15, regulation of wood packaging material in international trade. International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), FAO. Checked 3 August 2026.
- 3Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). European Commission. Checked 3 August 2026.