Brazilian cherry is one of the hardest and most striking floors you can put in a house. It goes down a warm orange-brown, deepens toward red once it sees daylight, and shrugs off dents that would mark most domestic woods.
It also has a few quirks worth knowing before you buy. Here’s what to expect from its hardness, its color change and the installation.
What Brazilian Cherry Actually Is
Brazilian cherry is the trade name for jatoba, a tropical hardwood. Despite the name, it isn’t related to the American cherry used in furniture.
According to The Wood Database, the heartwood ranges from a light orangish brown to a darker reddish brown. The sapwood is a light grayish yellow with a clear line between the two, so any sapwood in a board stands out.
It’s also dense. Dried jatoba averages about 57 pounds per cubic foot, and you’ll feel it the first time you carry a box.
How Hard Is Brazilian Cherry
Flooring hardness is usually measured with the Janka test, which records the force needed to press a steel ball into the wood. The National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) calls it a good indication of how well a species holds up to dents and dings.
Here’s how jatoba compares with the species people usually weigh it against.
| Species | Janka Hardness (lbf) |
|---|---|
| Brazilian cherry (jatoba) | 2,690 |
| Hickory (shagbark) | 1,880 |
| Hard maple | 1,450 |
| White oak | 1,350 |
| Red oak | 1,220 |
| Black walnut | 1,010 |
These figures come from The Wood Database. Other flooring charts list slightly different numbers because test samples vary, but the order stays about the same.
By these numbers, jatoba is more than twice as hard as red oak. In daily life, that means fewer dents from dropped pans, chair legs and dog claws.
Hardness has limits, though. It describes the wood, not the finish on top, so a hard floor can still show fine scratches. The NWFA also notes that Janka values don’t apply to engineered flooring, where a wood wear layer sits on a different core.
How Brazilian Cherry Changes Color
All wood changes color with light and air, but jatoba changes more than most. The Wood Database notes that its color darkens with light exposure, and flooring maker AHF Products describes the change in Brazilian cherry as very rapid.
The biggest shift comes early. AHF says the most dramatic changes happen within the first six months after installation. Over time, the floor moves from an earthy brown toward a deep burgundy.
Planning Around the Color Shift
- Judge samples with care. A fresh board and one that has sat in daylight can look like two different floors, so try to see both before you choose.
- Keep rugs and furniture moving at first. Covered spots stay lighter while the rest of the floor darkens. They catch up once they see light, but it takes time, so shift things now and then during the first months.
- Soften strong sun. Shades, curtains or window film slow the change in rooms that get hours of direct light.
- Don’t count on the finish to stop it. The color change happens in the wood itself, under the finish.
Installation Notes for Jatoba
Jatoba goes down like other solid hardwood, but its density changes the details. If you want the basics of how the boards lock together and get fastened, our guide to tongue and groove flooring walks through nail-down, glue-down and floating installs.
Cutting and Fastening
The Wood Database calls jatoba difficult to work because of its density and hardness. It has a moderate dulling effect on cutting tools, and its interlocking grain tears out easily when it’s planed.
On a job, that means sharp blades, patient cuts at doorways and vents, and fastening tools set up for dense wood.
Moisture Readings
Wood swells and shrinks as it gains and loses moisture, so installers compare the moisture content of the flooring with the subfloor before starting. Manufacturer instructions usually cap that difference at a few percentage points, with a tighter limit for wide planks.
Exotic species add a wrinkle. Installation instructions from BR-111, a Brazilian hardwood flooring brand, call for a moisture meter with the manufacturer’s calibration figures for exotic species, because different species read differently on a meter.
Seasonal Movement
On paper, jatoba’s shrinkage figures sit close to red oak’s, so it isn’t an unusually jumpy species. It still swells in humid months and shrinks in dry ones, and wider boards move more. Wood Floor Business notes that a 5-inch plank shrinks about twice as much as a 2 1/4-inch strip for the same change in moisture.
That’s one reason the NWFA recommends keeping homes between 30 and 50 percent humidity year-round. Around Chicago, furnace season is when floors dry out and gap, so a humidifier earns its keep.
Solid or Engineered Jatoba
Brazilian cherry comes as solid boards and as engineered flooring with a jatoba wear layer. The NWFA notes that solid wood belongs on or above ground level, while engineered flooring expands and contracts less, which makes it the better fit for a basement.
The tradeoff is the wear layer. Solid boards can be sanded and refinished many times over their life, and engineered boards can be refinished fewer times, depending on how thick that top layer is.
Is Brazilian Cherry a Good Fit for Your Home
Jatoba suits busy households, homes with dogs and anyone who wants a rich red-brown floor that gets richer with age. It also looks at home next to warm wood trim and traditional furniture.
It’s a harder sell if you want a light, gray or cool-toned floor. Stain can’t make jatoba lighter, and the wood will keep pulling toward red as it ages.
Picking between jatoba, oak and hickory usually comes down to the room, the light and who lives there. Quality Installs, a family-owned team of flooring installers in Glenview, offers free estimates and personalized consultations, and you can read more about our hardwood flooring installation work.
If you love dark wood but would rather have it mellow than deepen, walnut is worth a look, since it tends to lighten over time. Our guide to walnut flooring covers that tradeoff, along with walnut’s softer surface.