Teak

HEX

#7A5C3E

RGB

122, 92, 62

CMYK

0, 25, 49, 52

HSL

30\u00b0, 33%, 36%

Tailwind

bg-[#7a5c3e]

Thaitone index

#16

What Teak is

Thai Teak (สัก, sak) is the warm medium brown of aged teak wood used in northern Thai architecture — a mid-saturation, slightly red-biased brown at #7a5c3e that represents wood that has weathered indoor for several decades rather than freshly milled or dark-stained teak. The reference is the interior beams and floorboards of Lanna-style houses in Chiang Mai, Lampang, and Phrae.

Pittayamatee’s Thaitone entry places the color within the everyday (wisai) category. It sits lighter than stained walnut and darker than fresh teak, reflecting the specific tone that Lanna domestic interiors take on after long exposure to incense, candle smoke, and filtered light through wooden shutters.

Where this color traditionally appears

The canonical reference is the interior wood of traditional Lanna teak houses — particularly Wiang Kum Kam, the restored Lanna-period village near Chiang Mai, and the teak structures at the Ancient City outdoor museum. The color describes floorboards, structural posts, and wall panels that have aged indoors.

It appears on traditional Thai furniture (chairs, tables, cabinets), on temple scripture cabinets before gilding, on Chinese-Thai shophouse second-floor balconies, and on the dashboard panels and railings of traditional Thai river longtail boats. It is also the stock finish for contemporary reproduction Lanna furniture at Chiang Mai craft studios.

What it means in Thai culture

Teak signals Lanna and northern Thai identity, rural craft, and generational continuity — a warm, grounded color carrying no royal or religious restriction. The Royal Institute Dictionary documents sak as both the tree species and the color.

The color is distinctly northern rather than central in Thai regional reading. A teak interior signals Lanna heritage design, as distinct from the lacquered black-and-gold of Bangkok Rattanakosin interiors. It carries conservation weight — since the 1989 logging ban, visible old-growth teak in architecture is a marker of age and authenticity.

Using Teak in modern design

Thai Teak works best for Chiang Mai hospitality, craft furniture retail, and heritage tourism branding. Three concrete briefs:

• Lanna-style boutique hotel identity — teak as 40–60% dominant brand color paired with celadon and rice paper; reconstructs the traditional northern interior palette in print and digital.
• Craft furniture and homeware retail — teak with black typography; signals hardwood authenticity and northern Thai origin.
• Heritage tourism and cultural publishing — teak grounds for maps, guidebooks, and museum materials about Lanna architecture and culture.

It fails for tech and fintech (too rustic) and for fast-food or casual FMCG (too premium-craft).

Complementary colors

Three pairings carry Teak cleanly. With Celadon, the pairing reconstructs the northern Thai interior palette — celadon ceramic on teak wood surfaces, used across Chiang Mai hospitality. With Rice Paper, the combination is the default craft-publishing register — teak typography on cream stock for catalogues and editorial. With Indigo, the pairing evokes traditional Lanna interiors — teak furniture with indigo-dyed textile upholstery and cushions.

Browse the full Thaitone system or open the color picker to build a palette.

Information verified as of April 2026

Sources

1. Documented in the Thaitone system as one of 168 traditional Thai colors.—Pittayamatee, P. (1988). Thai Colour. Amarin Printing, Bangkok. (accessed Apr 10, 2026)
2. Thai teak (Tectona grandis) is the primary construction hardwood of traditional Lanna domestic architecture and is now protected in most natural forest stands following the 1989 national logging ban.—Royal Forest Department, Thailand — Teak Resource and Conservation Report, 2018 (accessed Apr 10, 2026)