Every pearl in our jewelry is grown by hand on our family farm in the lagoons of French Polynesia. Tahitian pearl farming is slow, patient work - it takes years of caring for the oysters before a single pearl is ready. Here is how a Tahitian black pearl actually comes to be, from a living oyster to the finished piece you wear.

Tahitian black pearl farming all starts withPinctada margaritifera- the black-lipped oyster. This is the only oyster that produces the naturally dark, colorful pearls the region is known for, and its dark shell interior is where those blues, greens, and blacks come from. Healthy, mature oysters are carefully selected before anything else can happen.

Selected oysters go through a process known as grafting - a gentle and highly technical step that takes real skill. Grafting is where a small bead, called the nucleus, is inserted into the oyster along with a piece of donor mantle tissue taken from another oyster. The nucleus is usually a polished bead of shell, and it gives the pearl its round starting shape.

The quality of the pearl is greatly determined by the quality of that mantle tissue, so selecting mantle from healthy, lustrous oysters is key. Once grafted, the oyster slowly secretes nacre - the same iridescent material that lines its shell - layer after layer over the nucleus. Those layers, built up over months, are what become the pearl.

Nearly all Tahitian pearls, including ours, are cultured. That means a farmer starts the process through grafting, rather than waiting for the extremely rare chance that an oyster forms a pearl entirely on its own. The pearl itself is still 100% real - grown by a living oyster from genuine nacre. Culturing is simply what makes it possible to raise fine pearls sustainably and reliably, instead of harvesting wild oysters.

After grafting, the oysters are placed into protective baskets and suspended on lines in the lagoon, where the pearls inside can grow. The oysters are periodically brought back in to be cleaned, which prevents overgrowth and keeps them healthy.

To clean them, we suspend the oysters from a platform near the reef and let reef fish do the work, or we clean them off by hand. Moving oysters to the reef gives the fish a rich food source, and it has been shown to improve the overall fish population of the lagoons. The farm and the reef end up helping each other.

Pearls grow over a period of roughly 18 months, sometimes longer. There is no way to rush it - the oyster adds nacre at its own pace, and a longer growth period is part of what gives a Tahitian pearl its depth of luster. It is one of the reasons genuine Tahitian pearls are so valued: every one represents well over a year of growth in the lagoon.

Once the pearls are ready to harvest, the oysters are brought in from the lagoon and the pearls are very gently extracted. As soon as a pearl is removed, a second graft is performed on the same oyster. During the second graft, a larger nucleus - similar in size to the pearl that was just harvested - is used.

Second-graft pearls are generally larger, both because of the bigger nucleus and because the oyster itself has grown. A healthy oyster can produce a series of pearls over its lifetime, each one a little larger than the last.

Everything we do at Anuna Pearl has our island, our lagoon, our wildlife, and our community in mind. A clean lagoon grows better pearls, so protecting this place is not separate from our work - it is the work.

• Our farm and homes are entirely powered by solar energy.
• All water used for farming and daily living is collected rainwater.
• Our oysters are naturally cleaned by reef fish, which gives the fish a safe, abundant food source.
• We operate a self-sustaining aquaponic farm that helps feed our family, our team, and our community.
• All stones used in our jewelry are lab-grown, so we can create beautiful pieces with a lighter environmental impact.

Because we farm our own pearls, there are no middlemen between the oyster and the finished piece. We grow them on the atoll of Takaroa, hand-select each one, and craft it into jewelry at our workshop in Boise, Idaho. If you would like to learn more about the pearls themselves, read about Tahitian pearls and how we grade them.

When you are ready, explore our collection and find a pearl that was grown, by hand, in our lagoon.