The Tahitian pearl

The gem that is born dark.

In the lagoons of French Polynesia — the atolls of the Tuamotu and Gambier islands, and further on the Cook Islands and Fiji — lives Pinctada margaritifera, the black-lipped oyster. It is she who produces the gem the trade calls the Tahitian pearl, after the port of Papeete from which the harvest sets out for the world.

The colour comes from the inner rim of the shell, dark as wet pitch: the nacre the animal deposits inherits its tint. The body runs from light grey to deep black, passing through gunmetal, aubergine, chocolate and green. Over the body moves the overtone — pink, blue, purple, and that iridescent green the trade calls peacock, which belongs to this oyster alone.

Sizes usually lie between eight and thirteen millimetres; some go down to six, few exceed sixteen, and among the baroques there are specimens that pass thirty millimetres in length.

Until 2017 French Polynesia imposed a minimum nacre thickness of 0.8 millimetres on exports. Since that rule was allowed to lapse, thickness is once again the responsibility of the buyer: it is checked against the light through the drill hole, and in the laboratory by X-ray.

In the maison's Tahitian pearls. Direct selection in French Polynesia · native colour · size measured to the second decimal · every gem admitted only when lustre, shape and structural integrity correspond to the MIMÍ master pearls.

Every Tahitian strand is identified by an individual code, which acknowledges its uniqueness.

The seven factors by which a pearl is read: How a pearl is judged. The baroque shape runs through this type too: Baroque pearls. What determines the value of a gem: What determines the price of a pearl.

Text by the MIMÍ Milano gemmologists · updated 9 September 2026