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Tahitian pearls As you approach the crystal-clear blue lagoons in a small private plane, you see a lush, sun-drenched, romantic vision, just what any honeymooner would expect the South Sea paradise of Tahiti to look like. There is unbelievably white sand, intensely blue water and swaying coconut palm trees, but the calm waves are deceptive: Beneath those warm waters, a thriving "underground" business takes place. But Tahiti one of more than 100 islands and atolls that make up French Polynesia in the South Pacific - is more than a vacation destination. This jewel-like island also happens to be the thriving epicenter of production for the lustrous, shiny orbs known as Tahitian black pearls. These pearls, in fact, are the second most important industry in French Polynesia, after tourism a $100 million business!
The Queen of Pearls
Tahitian pearls are not really black unlike their pale "Breakfast at
Tiffany" counterparts, these mesmerizing gems come in a range of coveted colors as eggplant, peacock green, dove gray and pistachio.
When you hold one in your hand, you see they are also larger than the typical white cultured pearl they range between 10 to 16 millimeters. These rare gems grow in large oysters known as Pinctada Margaritifera, and are found in many different shapes from round to oval and teardrop.
When the West discovered Tahiti in 1767, the natural black pearl quickly earned a deserved reputation as the "queen of pearls" or the "pearl of queens," since royalty such as Catherine the Great of Russia to the consort of Napoleon III soon owned necklaces of black pearls. But pearling was a dangerous business back then: skin divers had to brave shark-infested lagoons with dives up to 98 feet to bring up an oyster that contained a rare and valuable black pearl. The finds were so rare that 15,000-20,000 oysters had to be opened before a single pearl was found!
Today, Tahitian pearls are cultured, in much the same way as Japanese Akoya pearls, although since the pearls are larger, they generally spend more time in the water. Japanese implant or "culturing" techniques were brought to Tahiti in 1965. Pearls grow when an irritant like a grain of sand enters an oyster shell, prompting the oyster to produce a substance called nacre around the irritant in circles, as a protectant. These layers of lustrous nacre form the beautiful, shiny pearl. For implanted or "cultured" pearls, workers insert a mother-of-pearl bead and some mantle tissue into the oyster, which serves as the irritant around which the pearl will hopefully grow. Much of Tahitian pearl farming takes place in the Tuamotu Archipelago,
which includes two islands and 76 coral atolls three hours away from the main island of Tahiti and reachable only by plane and boat. (Atolls are coral islands surrounding lagoons, which are perched on top of the rims of extinct volcanoes.) The "farms" are really just a series of sheds about a quarter-mile off shore that stand clear of the water, on stilts. A small boat motors you out to the pearl farm, where you watch pearl workers care for the oysters. The "farmers" hang ropes from buoys in the lagoon - which is around twelve miles long and six miles wide snagging the oyster larva and keeping them there as they grow. Literally millions of oysters are scattered around the lagoon. A pearl worker hoists up a long rope to show you It looks like a long, black, beaded necklace, but each rope really holds thousands of baby oysters. The farmer removes the dead ones and scrapes away parasites that can harm the shellfish.
Only when the oysters are two years old are they finally ready to be implanted with a bead, which is extremely precise, almost surgical work. Half of these oysters will not survive or will reject the bead, but the rest are placed back in the perfectly temperate, blue lagoons, with the hope that they will produce a pearl after another two years. But the odds are against the oyster: Only 30 percent of those placed back in the sea produce salable pearls and only 1 to 2 percent of all the pearls are of gem quality!
When it is pearl harvest time (which takes place every June and October), the moment of truth finally arrives: The farmers hoist up the long strips of oysters once more. When they pry the shellfish open carefully with a sharp knife, they hope to find something far more rare than a diamond and more precious than caviar. Suddenly a magnificent, opalescent, fiery black pearl is dropped into your hand. Even on its own, not set into any ring or strung on any necklace, you see its unusual and gleaming beauty - and as the water reflects beautiful blues from the sun shining down on the lagoon, you also see the beauty of the region these perfect gems come from. Much of Tahitian pearl farming takes place in the Tuamotu Archipelago, which includes two islands and 76 coral atolls three hours away from the main island of Tahiti and reachable only by plane and boat.
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Tahiti Pearls