According to legend, Oro, the god of peace and fertility, came to earth in a rainbow and dedicated this pearl oyster TeUfi to mankind. There is also a legend that Oro gave the pearls in the shell to the beautiful Princess Bora Bora as a symbol of his love for the princess. There is also a saying that Okana, a coral elf, and Ualuo, a sand god, put robes on Pinctada tefi to make it shine with the colors of thousands of fish in Polynesian waters.
TeUfi's scientific name is Pinctada. In the last century, in order to meet the demand of European button industry, it and countless other oysters were picked in large quantities in Tuamotu and the salt lakes around Gambia. These two islands are two of the five islands in French Polynesia.
When naked shell pickers wrap pearls in waters nearly 30 meters deep where sharks often haunt, they occasionally find extremely precious natural black pearls. But this discovery is very rare: every time you open 15000 oysters, you can find a natural pearl. Long before artificial breeding, black pearls had a rare and precious reputation. Royal nobles all over the world like to wear jewelry inlaid with black pearls, which makes it enjoy the reputation of "the queen's pearl" and "the queen among pearls". The most famous of these natural black pearls is Azra, which is the central decoration of a necklace in the jewelry of the Russian Tsar Empire. In ancient China, black pearls symbolized wisdom and were guarded between dragon teeth. He who wants black pearls must conquer the dragon first.
In 1960s, due to overfishing in oyster beach, natural pearls in French Polynesia were on the verge of extinction, which led to the suspension of pearl collection. 196 1 year, the experiment of artificial culture began in Bora Bora Island Salt Lake, and the bumper harvest in 1963 confirmed the feasibility of developing pearl culture in this area. Many farms have been established in Manich, Malutia and Mangareva Islands. The process of cultivating pearl oyster is very long, and because the root of pearl oyster is easy to die, it needs to be carefully cultivated during the cultivation process. "Black-lipped" Pinctada lives in the corals of Polynesian salt lakes, spawning regularly every year and fertilizing underwater. These shellfish called oyster eggs may fly for a month. Some of them grow on corals, while others die and are buried in the sand. Pearl farmers put seedling picking accessories at the bottom of the water to collect naturally propagated shellfish seedlings, and then spend three years cultivating them underwater. In these three years, the pearl oyster has been carefully cultivated and needs to be cleaned several times. Pinctada can be inserted into the nucleus when it reproduces. Its purpose is to stimulate the mantle of the shell to make the pearl layer secrete and gradually form pearls. The whole process includes implanting a spherical pearl nucleus in the pearl oyster and taking out a small piece of outer membrane cells from another pearl oyster. In the following years, it may regard the pearl core as an invasion, wrap it layer by layer with pearl liquid, or discharge it from the pearl shell. Be sure to take out the pearls carefully when harvesting, and then put them back in the lake. This process sounds simple, but this mollusk is soft and delicate. Only 30 pearls will be produced out of every 100 pearl order, and only one or two of them will become perfect products. Pearls are easily affected by weather and water quality in the process of breeding, such as tornadoes or rising water temperature. It is these factors that lead to the formation of irregular, semi-irregular and round pearls. It is these factors that make perfect pearls very rare. With more than 20 years of rich experience and careful cultivation of shellfish, the cultivation of pearls in Tahiti has been restored in line with the right time, place and people.
When Tahiti black pearls entered the market, the response was not enthusiastic because white pearls were artificially dyed black or gray as competition. However, with the American Gemological Institute officially recognizing the natural color of cultured pearls in Tahiti, and the International Jewelry Federation (CIBJO) starting to use the commercial name "cultured pearls in Tahiti", its international popularity has been greatly improved. From 1977 to 1994, the pearl export volume of French Polynesia soared from 6 kg to 2,8l5 kg. At the same time, the export value of products increased from 2000 US dollars to 208 billion US dollars. Although the sales of cultured pearls in Tahiti have unexpectedly developed at a high speed, its output is less than 1% of the global pearl production.