Tahiti’s Black Pearl: A Treasure Rooted in Tradition

In the beginning, the creator Ta Arawa came out of a shell looking like an egg. He created the sky and the sea in his palm. Then he took part of his broken shell to create rocks and land in the universe. And thus was Tahiti born, a world where land and sea live together in harmony. Nowadays, the legend remains, held alive by turquoise blue lagoons of a continent as big as Europe. Behind the amazing beauty of the landscapes, French Polynesia also hides a unique natural treasure that symbolizes the identity of the whole territory. They say you cannot choose it, but it chooses you instead. The black pearl, or Purava in Tahitian. But although this national emblem is known by everyone, its origin, its history and its potential remain secret. Let us discover how the pearls are produced and sold. There are pearls that you connect with. We don't know who will sell them to, but we like them and we buy them. These natural resources are threatened nowadays. We can't make beautiful pearls with poor quality mother of pearl in a dirty lagoon. What improvements are being implemented to develop the market? The whole future of the business rests on this garland. Let's dive to the heart of the Polynesian culture of pearls, to understand how the black pearl of Tahiti remains a miracle, despite its fame. It's a present, basically. It's something 100% natural. And we don't have the means to decide in advance of the quality, of the color it will have. And so from the work of the gods to the labor of man, this is the story of the black pearl of Tahiti. In Polynesia, the culture of black lip pearl oyster started barely 60 years ago, a very recent trade that Maeva learned already when she was a child. The young woman is working at her family's pearl farm, started 30 years ago by her parents. I studied in Australia and then they needed me here. So I took the opportunity and came back. I actually always feel like coming back here. It's a beautiful scenery and we have a beautiful trade. The Champon pearl farm is a small structure with only three employees. This here is Titari, who's in charge of preparing the oysters before the graft. He's cleaning them, removing all the small parasites that grew on it. And then he opens them a bit to make the grafting easier. And here is the grafter. This is Yo. He's been working with us for 17 years. He taught us a lot about pearl culture and today he's busy harvesting. It means that he's extracting the pearls that we grafted a year and a half ago. If they look good, he will re-graft them, which means trying to make another pearl with the same oyster. Initially, this happened by accident. A grain of sand would go inside an oyster and in order to defend itself, the oyster covers it with mother of pearl. And that's how pearls are born. Since mankind discovered this process, it copied it to create grafts. The technique was developed in Japan in the beginning of the 20th century. It consists of introducing a nuclei, meaning a small white ball made of shells inside the oyster instead of the grain of sand. Then we add a graft. So the graft is a part of the mantle, here. Its job is to produce mother of pearl. So we take cells from the mantle and we want them to produce mother of pearl around the ball that we put inside the oyster. The grafter works with the oyster only slightly open. It doesn't get more open than that, about one finger. That's because opening more means risking to tear the muscle right there and thus killing the shellfish. One and a half years later, the mother of pearl layer that surrounds the nuclei will perhaps become a pearl if the graft worked. On average, only one oyster out of three will produce a pearl. Behind is Magnana. She's in charge of gathering the oysters that have to be re-grafted. She inserts them inside these nets with a very thin mesh. And if the nuclei we put inside the oyster is rejected, it'll be kept inside the net. After one and a half months, we'll know if the oyster will produce a pearl or not. Before getting a pearl from an oyster takes about five years. Pearl culture demands a lot of patience. So my brother handles the production. He takes care of the planning and the stock of oysters we have in our farm. Maeve works in the farm along with her brother Emerick and their mother. Their farm is an enjoyable stop for tourists. Paola, Emerick's fiancée, leads the visits. We have buoys in the water that hold the beds. Then every three or four months, we bring our oysters on these lines so they get cleaned by small fishes. It takes maximum four days for the fishes to clean them. Before that, we used high-pressure water and we cleaned them like that. But it stressed them too much and we lost a lot of them. The oysters rejected the nuclei. But for the last three to four years, we found this new cleaning system and it works really well. Amidst this small, 20 hectares-wide farm, the family found balance away from the hustle of the capital. Yet it is in Papeete that the biggest amounts of pearls are found. The one and a half million pearls produced every year in the archipelago are an endless source of inspiration for the local jewelers and designers. In Frédéric Messier's high-end jewellery store, the pearl is displayed next to gold and precious stones. I'm trying to do something modern and minimalist to find interesting volumes while remaining simple. Well, it's not easy. But I try to blend the colours of the pearls. Since the Tahitian pearl is all but black, here we have a grapefruit colour. Here's a blue, this one slightly purple, and a peacock. Peacock is this eggplant-like green. The necklace will look good since it'll take the shape of the neck. It'll be nice. When I arrived in Polynesia in 1993, I discovered the whole magic world of the pearls. And it became a true passion for me. A passion that's still there after all these years. It's magic in a sense. I can't live without it and I don't get tired of it. I'm just dazzled every day. Frédéric Messier trained among the most famous jewellers at Place Vendôme in Paris. Yet his inspiration comes from the islands. I'm from the Mediterranean region. And I've always been fascinated by the seabed and everything that lies there. Pearls come from the sea. We shouldn't forget that. They're created by the sea. And they're like a present. I like this idea. The feeling when we know that this is something 100% natural. We don't have the means to decide in advance if the quality, if the colour, it'll have. The pearl is a symbol of purity, of wisdom and faith. It's used to be a privilege of the royalty. And it remains a luxury item that pleases stylists such as Reri Arta. She's always been fascinated by the pearl. And her creation of a pearl-made cardigan gave this ex-French teacher turned jeweller the opportunity to join the very exclusive world of fashion. This piece I came up with when I planned to join a festival. Before going, I checked the pictures of the women going. They all had those kind of clothes with metal and leather, with a lot of bare skin. And so I imagined something for myself. The idea of using pearls came afterwards. This one took us 200 hours. There are time-consuming adjustments. But I'm not alone. I have my workshop. And we work together. I have a very good team behind me. It's really important because we work with our heart. I'm proud to have created such a piece. It's eight months of work in French Polynesia. In Tahiti, we all love the pearl. Everyone has a pearl necklace. It beautifies and we can even feel the energy. The mana from the sea and the pearls, really. For the mana, the spirit of the sea guides the life of the Tahitians. And Reri Arta is completely focused on this precious jewel. And this one is worn over a dress. I made it for the wedding of someone famous. But it wasn't used in the end. So I wear it myself. And every time there are people who come and talk to me. Not because it's a luxury item. But because of the amount of work it represents. Even jewelers who usually don't really care come to say hi. It's great. Since then, Reri Arta has joined numerous fashion shows and photo shoots for prestigious magazines. And today she has an appointment on the southern end of Tahiti. This is for the in-flight magazine of the local flight company. They put forward the beauties of Tahiti and wrote an article about jewelry. And so they got in touch with me. I'm really happy because this necklace is very popular. So it's good advertising. I'm really honored to share this piece of jewelry. It moved a bit. I'll have to adjust it. There's this one too. Close to the body. Since she's very slim, I think this one will do. Unless I adjust the other one. It works too. What are the blue pearls? These are quartz. In the end, they go for the gray pearls. I'm tightening up. Can you breathe? The models are so beautiful. I actually seldom see someone wearing the jewelry. Every time I feel the piece is different, depending on the person wearing it. Right now, she only wears a skin-colored bra. And it makes the necklace even more beautiful. I see the ponytail, just like before. All right, move your hair away like you did before. Perfect. When looking at these iridescent jewels glittering, it seems obvious that the Tahitian pearl is a small miracle. Equal part the result of nature and science, it is a very sought-after gem. Three times a year, there's an auction dedicated to this sea jewel. The event is eagerly awaited, but off-limit to the general public. Loic is one of the most important Tahitian pearl traders, and he's showing us what's going on behind the scenes of this very confidential event. These boxes display 651 batches. That's 145,000 pearls waiting to be assessed. This one's brighter. In order to try to set the right price, Loic is helped by three colleagues. Blue-green. People really like this one, when it's really green. Blue is also even enough as a color. When it's too colored, it can no longer be used in a necklace, because then one side will be okay, but not the other. It's a problem. Each of them is in charge of assessing part of the batch, and then suggesting a price. Our job is all about sorting. We must be able to give each pearl the right class. If we make a mistake, we can end up overpricing it or underpricing it. Either way, it's pretty bad. If we underprice it, then we won't get the batch, and the producer won't work with us in the future. If we overprice it, we'll lose money when reselling. The main criterion to assess a pearl is its shape. A round shape will always be more valuable than a pear shape or circle shape, for instance. The second criterion is the quality, meaning the tiny spikes there. Then we look at the size. The bigger the pearl, the more valuable. And then there's the color, too. Green pearls are more valuable than the gray, white, or black ones. The color is really important. Finally, there's one aspect that's hard to judge. The glow. I mean, the mirror effect. We can say that it's good, average, or not good, but we can't be much more accurate. And so many people have different interpretations. Besides, tastes vary a lot from country to country. So we end up with very different assessments. You think there's a chance for us to get it at this price? We know we need quite a bit of colored pearls, but we're not the only ones, unfortunately. The Japanese are really into these pearls, so we're competing with them. We'll send out her offer, and we'll know what's what at the last minute, when the results are shown on Sunday night. So how much is that per pearl? Did you calculate? 3,175 multiplied by 887 divided by 119,331. I reached 23,600 euros with this batch. Each buyer will find its batch depending on the nationality of their customers. Americans look for multicolored pearls. Europeans like whiter pearls. And for the most wealthy clients, some pearls are simply exceptional, and the most beautiful can go for up to 30,000 euros. This one's special because it's big. It's a 19-millimeter pearl. They're usually between 8 and 10 or 11 millimeters. Beyond 11 millimeters, it's more rare. And here we have a 19-millimeter pearl. It's unique, very, very rare. Besides, it's not just big. It has a great color and glow. The bigger the pearl, the more drab it is usually. But this one's shiny. We can even see ourselves in it. And this blue, a deep blue, that means this pearl will end up at a famous jeweler. And that's for sure. Right here in the capital city center, this tradesman started his business almost 20 years ago. I really fell in love with the pearl. For 30 years, I've been surfing. And then one day, I moved on to the pearl business. It's two totally different worlds. But one day, I found something I really liked and that I was passionate about. What's amazing is that when I get started, I just hoped I'd be able to earn enough to live to get a proper salary. It's a bit like pulling a string. You know, you pull, and you never know what's going to show up. And so I moved on and on. And today, we're 23 people. I've worked with some of them for more than 12 years. And it's awesome. It's a real adventure. So this is where we do the sorting. There are two areas. On the right lies the sorting. And on the left, it's the valorization for the necklaces, jewels. And this is Tamatawa, who's in charge of the sorting. Every pearl we buy in this company goes through him. Everyone sorts them, but he checks and confirms that we didn't make mistakes regarding the quality of our purchase. Our stock lies somewhere between 1 million to 1.3 million pearls. And it's sorted by shape, quality, size, and color. That's our strength. So if one day a customer tells us, I need round pearls, A-grade, dark blue, 8 to 8.8 millimeters, and I need 3,000 of these, we most likely have them. Although the Tahitian pearl is sought after in the whole world, Polynesia is still struggling to fully benefit from the potential of its natural reserves. A major part of our pearls are sold as raw pearls. So what happens? We sell them to the Japanese, who go back to Japan to work on them, and then sell them all over the world. This is still a third world country kind of system where we sell very high quality raw material so that it's transformed and sold somewhere else. Nowadays, we'd like to reach a stage where our product made in Tahiti is also transformed in Tahiti. Loek has already started to train his employees to manufacture jewelry. If Polynesia could produce the pearls from beginning to end, it could generate two to three times more jobs in this industry. That would be an economic boom and a beautiful way to reclaim this national treasure. The Champon family understood this and see the pearls from production to the sale of jewelry. We expanded the house to be able to display the pearls, to show people how we classify them, and then we create jewelry in this room and sell them here. Hey, look at how beautiful these are. But not perfectly round. Beautiful, right? Should we book them? You do as you want. Meva, can you give me the price? The island once had three pearl farms, but today, only the Champon farm survives thanks to their business model. We offer a wide range because we've been harvesting for three months. So we have many pearls in stock and can make beautiful pieces of jewelry. We have lots of different kinds, such as on this necklace, for instance. You can see the various colors. Eggplant, green, a couple of yellows. In the beginning, we didn't intend to sell them directly. We sold them during auctions and to wholesalers. But we thought we may as well try to sell them ourselves. Perhaps smaller quantities, but we'll try to showcase our best pearls. And so that's how we started to create some jewelry and it went well. Everyone found their place in the company. And we like to work on the pearls from beginning to end. The more you look at the pearls, the more you like them. Beyond her passion for pearls, Meva will be able to use her knowledge in biology to further improve the quality of the product and secure a bright future for the Champon farm. The pearl hides many more secrets. Here, at the west end of the island of Tahiti, lies the secret of Monoi, the sacred Polynesian oil. This gold-tinted balm has long been nourishing and perfuming the body and the hair of the Tahitians. Te Tortiare Pere is the keeper of the manufacturing process. She learned the age-old gestures of the recipe from her grandmother and her aunts. Don't forget I need two coconuts, okay? Along with her husband Nick, she created a company that blends tradition and modernity into a handmade product. Te Tortiare's Monoi gained its reputation thanks to an unusual ingredient added to the oil, the black pearl of Tahiti. Jessie is filling up the bottles with the Monoi we prepared. And the pearl. And then we'll add stickers and deliver. And this is our working environment. We're close to nature. We have a 180-degree view over the lagoon and the ocean and it feels good. In line with its love of nature, Te Tortiare chose to combine the treasures of the ocean with that of the land to create a brand new Eco Monoi made by hand. This recipe has been in my family for generations and we passed it down. So the basic ingredients are freshly grated coconut, Tiare Tahiti blooms that we picked early this morning, and the pearls. So here I'm adding the pearls right at the beginning so they get to know the flowers and the coconut. People usually ask me why I add the pearls in the Monoi but that's how it's always been in my family. During the time of my great-grandmother and great-aunts, the pearls were crushed and grinded. They were natural pearls but now they come from farms so I won't grind them but simply add them to the mix. The black pearls of Tahiti are made by calcium concretion and are known for their cosmetic value. The pearls are already used for their anti-aging properties because of the mother of pearl and its calcium, trace elements, aragonite. Besides, our ancestors, our Tupunas, already knew about this, which is incredible. They knew about it and now we can prove it in laboratories, through testing. But our ancestors knew it already. The recipe is like a ceremony for Teh Tortiare. The recipe says that using my hands allows me to have an early contact with the ingredients and nature. It's an exchange. There are the ingredients but also something important that we don't see, the mana. That's what I add to the mix, as a person. So this phase is about the contact and through what I feel in my hands, the smells that float around, I can tell right away that this Monoi will be great. Now I'm going to leave this to dry in the sun for a couple of weeks. I take it out every morning and bring it back when the sun begins to set. It'll take six weeks before the mix is ready to be filtered. So here is the coconut. It gave a lot of water. It's ready. Since 1992, Monoi is the only product of Polynesia covered by a protected designation of origin. Alex cultivates pearls in the Tuamotu. So how was the harvest? Are you happy? Yeah, it's just a question of price. It's going to be tough. A couple of years ago, this regular customer lost his entire harvest. It's warm, right? Oh, it's crazy warm. Very little rain, very little wind. Global warming was difficult. It's just like Jesus crossing the desert. Alex has been through quite the ordeal. When was it? Two, three years ago? Four? Since 2015, more or less. We started to lose the color. It became gray and noir. Loïc had a hard time buying them. We're not a charity. When the pearls don't look nice, we can't buy them at the same price as good looking ones. When the pearls are beautiful, we're very happy to pay what they're worth. But basically, we pay for what we find. For about one and a half years, the quality of the harvests is improving. And today, it's probably one of the best. It's been quite a while. When you can see the lagoons getting better, then the pearls are of better quality too. We can't make beautiful pearls with poor quality mother-of-pearl in a dirty lagoon. Pollution and global warming are indeed the worst enemies of the pearl industry. And these are major obstacles for Chin, who, for the last 10 years, has worked towards a single goal, finding the perfect pearl. The man is a researcher in genetics. He knows that preserving this national treasure means controlling its environment. In some locations, we're trying to really break down the physical and chemical parameters that can influence the quality of the pearls produced. This is a multi-parameter probe. In this area, we use it to automatically measure the temperature and the pH quality of the water, along with the quantity of chlorophyll A and all the physical and chemical elements that we could link to the quality of the pearls produced in an experimental culture nearby. The journey for the perfect pearl has only just begun, and he hopes to be able to create it at the research centre of Ifremer. His main goal is to create an oyster that is able at the same time to resist weather conditions while providing very good quality pearls. So in here, we have several experiments going on. When it comes to global warming, we're using pools whose water temperature and nutrition we control. And we apply stressing temperatures to observe how the oyster, this batch of oysters, reacts to a temporary increase in temperature. Along with his team, Chin embarked on an incredible journey to give birth to the very first test tube oysters. After many trials, they are today the only ones mastering every step involved in creating this shellfish. In this room, the researcher grows seaweed in order to feed the young oysters born in the laboratory. So this is the lava breeding area. In these tanks, we have millions and millions of oysters. Currently, they're between two and three weeks old. The micro-lava we created in the laboratory are moved to this tank. The pump allows us to feed them 24 hours a day. So the lava stay here about three to four weeks in this room. Then we move them to another room called the micro-nursery, where we take care of them during an extra three to four weeks. Only then do we release them outside. In the palm of the researcher's hand, the oysters start to take shape after several weeks. His work is a key element for the future of pearl culture in Polynesia, which is the archipelago's second revenue stream after tourism. Chin is also the first person to have established a link between the colour of the oyster's shell and the colour of the pearls it'll produce. When it comes to genetics, the most important is the graft oyster. We know that it's the one that mostly influences the end colour of the pearl. Here we have a typical and representative example, the albino oyster, which is extremely rare in the wilderness. So our goal was to find males and females to be able to create more and to spread them in a hatchery. Today, we have several thousand oysters that could potentially compete with the species currently available in the international market. These next-gen oysters are selected, sorted and bred to be champions. Then they'll be distributed for free to various local farms to compete against foreign producers, especially from Japan. But Chin's mission doesn't end here. Today, the researcher is going to visit some of the partner farms for a first review. So today we're heading to the northern Tuamotu, which are about a one-hour flight from Tahiti. There are two atolls that are major pearl producers. That's Aratua and Apataki. So let's go. We're going to check that the oysters have been growing up as planned and talk with the producers to plan the tests to be carried out during the year and before July. The Tuamotu archipelago lies one and a half hours from Tahiti by plane. Cradle of the pearl oyster, the fragile Pinctada margaritifera is mostly found here in this 6,000 hectares-wide archipelago. It's made of atolls surrounded by corals coming from volcanoes that have been dead for millions of years. To reach the farms of Aratua and Apataki, the two major pearl producers on the atoll, Chin will have to continue the trip by boat. When seen from the sky, the lagoon displays a vivid array of colors that are the perfect case for the divine pearl. According to the legend, the moon flooded the ocean with its rays in order to impregnate the oysters with holy dew. Many pearl farms have settled here. Together, they produce 80% of Tahiti's pearls. The lines coming out of the turquoise water, gently rocked by the clear stream, are proof of how important the activity is. The researcher begins his inquiries in a pearl farm in Aratua. Oh, right. They're really polished. Very colorful. Some of them even have several colors. This is more peacock color. And here we have various shades of pink, more or less dark. Nowadays, nature gives us a variety of colors. Here's the range. This is the current market. These are competing species. And this is what we could develop in Polynesia with another species. As we progress through various selection rounds, I think we can really get there. Shape, size, color, glow. In order to reach the perfect result, Chin doesn't hesitate studying every possible sample of the pearl, from the highest to the lowest grade. And when there are lots of circles like this, can you do anything with it? All right. Well, this is interesting for me, too. The worse it is, the more marks on the surface, the better. Sometimes, in order to understand what makes a pearl beautiful, we also have to understand why it sometimes isn't. There are probably two quality pearls, but one of them went on the wrong path, while the other maintained its quality. These can't be sold. And that's pretty clear. It combines at the same time very deep circles with rings very close together. And on top of that, it has no color. So that was clearly a waste of time. In order to understand the process, the best solution remains to remove a piece of the mantle to observe it in a laboratory. You cut it right there. And what I'm going to do is to look at the structure with a microscope to try to understand why there are so many marks. I'm also going to extract the DNA of the pearl pocket to see why these genes created the holes. I'll give you 10 tubes of each, already filled with a solution. So when you open the tube, you put the piece in it, and you close it and put it in the fridge. Another thing I'm interested in is if you go out and see like 50 poke marks, and you know you won't do anything with it, well, add these in as well. You cut a piece and add it. And right on the tube, poke mark 10 of each is enough for me. Chin is on his way to the second partner farm in Apataki. His experiments are eagerly awaited here, since the pearl business is the livelihood of thousands of people in the atoll. In this farm, during the graft season, more than 30 employees work seven days a week to produce the 35,000 pearls annually that are then sold on the international market. What we'll do is that we'll open two or three of each. I want to look inside. With his knowledge in genetics, Chin helps the grafters to better spot the oysters that are most likely to give the pearls iridescent colours. If I had to pick one, a single one, the only one I would take would be this one. Everything else I wouldn't take. This, no. No, it's all grey. You know, you'll never get polished pearls with that. This whole stripe here is grey. You know, you'll only get grey pearls. You'll never get a peacock with that. Here, however, the peacock is already there. Chin gave us a lot in terms of work techniques, especially regarding the grafting. Before, we didn't really do it the way the Chinese do it sometimes. Since Chin came, we really pay attention to properly sort out our grafting. He then turns his attention to the young oysters that he left here six months ago. Oh, yeah, this is very, very dense. Over 10 centimetres, we have, I don't know, like 40 or 50. The sewing has worked really well. Chin moves on to older oysters. More than a year later, we've reached extraordinary results. I mean, such density over a single collector is something we could only find 20 years ago in our lagoons. But these animals are different from the ones we collect naturally since we have chosen their parents. It's not nature, it's us, humans, who chose them based on their growth, their morphology, intensity of the colour of the shell as regards to the colour of the pearls. And clearly, these children coming from this crossing are optimised for production. After 10 years of research, the first mass-produced test tube oysters will soon reach the market. The whole future of the business rests on this garland. In Polynesia, more than 500 pearl farmers will be able to benefit from the experiments of the Ifremer in the future. By improving the quality of the next pearls, the researcher will certainly help increase their value and beauty, already recognised worldwide. A miracle of nature, a present of the gods, the pearls are so mysterious that they led to many legends in French Polynesia. They've only recently been grown by men and remain the most fascinating and sought-after gem. As our journey draws to a close, we can see how it turned into a human adventure. In this tale, the pearls are the cultural cradle of a people who love their country, care about the continuation of its traditions, and are keepers of a fragile heritage that must be looked after. Transcribed by ESO, translated by —