Where Absolute Black sits among granites
In the stone trade granite is a commercial category before it is a geological one, and Absolute Black is the clearest case of the gap. A textbook granite is a light, coarse rock full of quartz and feldspar, which is why a granite countertop is usually speckled.
Absolute Black has almost no quartz in it. It is a fine-grained dark igneous rock of the dolerite and gabbro family, quarried chiefly in southern India and in parts of southern Africa, and it is sold as granite because that is the trade name for a hard igneous stone used in building.
Why there is no pattern in it
The uniformity is a grain size effect. The rock cooled fast enough that its crystals never grew large enough for an eye to separate them, so what would be a visible speckle in a coarse granite stays below the threshold of sight.
That gives a surface with no direction and no repeat. Tiles can be laid in any orientation, cuts can be taken from anywhere, and a replacement piece matches, which is not the case with a veined stone.
Polished, honed and flamed black
This range carries all three faces, and the finish moves the color of a black stone further than it moves any other. The stone is the same in each; what changes is how much light comes back off it.
Polished reads as deep jet black and holds a reflection. Honed lifts to a flat charcoal, since a matte surface scatters light instead of returning it, and it is the finish that shows the stone as a color instead of a mirror.
What flaming does to a black stone
Flaming is the one worth knowing about before ordering. The face is passed under an intense flame, the minerals at the surface expand at different rates and spall away, and what is left is a rough, open texture.
On a black stone that process also changes the color, because the fractured surface scatters light in every direction. A flamed Absolute Black reads as a silver gray. It is an exterior and stair surface, chosen for the texture; anyone after a matte black wants the honed face.
Formats and the half inch
12x12, 18x18 and 24x24 carry this range in equal measure, with a 12x24 alongside them, in 1/2 and 3/8 inch thicknesses.
The half inch goes with the larger squares, which is ordinary for a dense igneous stone at that size. It matters at a threshold, since a half inch floor stands higher than the 3/8 inch tile it may be meeting in the next room.
Black granite against the other black surfaces
A black porcelain repeats exactly and asks nothing of the surface, but its black is a printed or pigmented face on a fired body. A black marble is a carbonate and a softer stone. Absolute Black is a hard igneous rock with the color all the way through it.
Black porcelain tile is the fired alternative, black mosaic tile holds the small formats, and granite slabs is where the same stones run large.
Where a black granite floor goes
An entry, a hall, a kitchen floor, a stair, a fireplace hearth and the dark half of a checkerboard. It also goes outdoors in the flamed face, which is where the texture belongs.
A black floor absorbs light where a pale one returns it, so it grounds a bright room and needs the lighting considered in a dim one. Black tile and mosaic pulls the color together from every material in the catalog.
