Saltillo Information
What Makes a Good Saltillo Tile?
Saltillo tile is an unglazed clay floor tile made in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. The tile is created from one of the best natural clay deposits in the world, which comes from that location. This is the manufacturing process in brief:
- Clay is excavated from the earth, cleaned, and sifted.
- The clay is mixed with water.
- The wet clay is formed into tile shapes.
- The tiles are dried in the sun (if it rains, the process is delayed).
- The dried tiles are fired in cave-like structures that become kilns.
The Quality of the Tile
The quality of the tile is partly determined by how clean the clay was before the tile was made. Unfortunately, there is a lot of Saltillo tile available that is created with unclean clay due to the high demand for it in today’s market. You might wonder what clean clay is.
Before making the Saltillo tile, our suppliers who produce high-quality Saltillo tile excavate clay from pure clay deposits on the river’s high banks. Many other suppliers buy their tile from little independent tile makers who dig their clay out of riverbeds and do not sift it, so imagine what else might be mixed in with the clay. This is a lower-quality Saltillo tile.
Standard Saltillo tiles are handmade; no modern machinery is used in their production. As a result, each piece will have its unique character. You will find small chips, cracks, and bumps. These flaws only give the floor character and rustic quality. If you’re fortunate, your tile may even contain some animal footprints.