Tahitian Treasures

TAHITIAN TREASURES

SWEET VANILLA

In Raiatea and Taha’a, some 500 growers cultivate one of the best vanillas in the world.

Vanilla was introduced to the French Polynesian islands in 1849. This variety of orchid would be but a mundane creeper if a go-between didn’t join the male and female elements of each open flower. From the fertilized flower, a bean is born nine months later. The beans are harvested at maturity, when they become a brownish green, between April and June. Only the highest quality ones are selected for drying. Over three months, they turn a warm brown color, losing 60 percent of their water.

The quality of the finished product is determined in large part by the careful preparation of the beans and the drying process from sunrise to midday. As they dry, the beans are rubbed by hand to evenly distribute the grains. Special certification is required to prepare vanilla, a process involving much patience, care and investment of time and money.

Tahitian vanilla has lost many of its producers since the 1960s, due in part to urbanization, but also to the influx of new visitors which has brought viruses that have attacked the climbing plant. Polynesia produced 300 tons of vanilla in 1949, compared to the dozen tons produced today. Tahitian vanilla has an aromatic palate larger than the Bourbon, Fragrance or Pompona varieties and sets the standard for the best cooks and fine gourmets. “Tahitian vanilla has ten flavor molecules whereas Fragrance only has four,” explains Maurice Wong, head of the vanilla research laboratory on the island of Raiatea. In the laboratory, you’ll find vanillin, not as strong as vanilla, but more flavorful, as well as anise alcohol, which helps to soften the pods as well as to distill the vanilla’s smooth and gentle flavors. After this brief introduction, it’s up to you to discover the Tahitian vanilla farms and factories, almost all of which are open to visitors.

THE PAREO, A WAY OF LIFE

The pareo isn’t merely something of folklore and legend; it’s a staple of the French Polynesian wardrobe.

Each summer, tropical-motif pareos flourish in swimsuit shops, making folk on the mainland long for a Tahitian beach. But in French Polynesia, the pareo is not just there to make tourists happy; it’s loved for its comfort, beautiful colors and tradition.

Due to globalization, the vast majority of pareos found in Polynesia are made in Asia, particularly Indonesia. But not all Polynesian pareos are manufactured abroad. Raiatea is home to the Polynesian fabric factory Arii Création, founded in 1964 by Joseph Chaussoy, originally a painter, who now runs the business with his two sons, Valentin and Evrard. Their mission: to offer traditional motifs, constantly updated and modernized. But it’s not easy to create cutting-edge fashion out of a rectangle of fabric six feet by three and a half feet—almost always with exotic prints!

Arii Création isn’t content merely to reproduce gardenias, frangipanes and hibiscus flowers; they also push into the realm of traditional culture to invent graphics inspired by tikis (ancestral statues) or drawings of the Marquise Islands. Of Chinese origin, the Chaussoys are well aware that the environment in which one evolves is the foundation of most artistic creation. “If we were in Australia, we would probably do motifs inspired by aboriginal designs,” explains Valentin Chaussoy.

Historically, pareos were hand printed using carved wood blocks, but since 1995, the painting and designs have been done by machine. Approximately 5000 “Made in Tahiti” pareos are produced each month by this little factory in Raiatea.

TREASURE OF THE LAGOONS

The black pearl of Tahiti is earning international notoriety. Today, it’s the height of chic, from New York to Paris!

It’s harvest day on the Vairua pearl farm; dozens of iridescent Tahitian pearls are delicately placed at the bottom of a glass bowl. They are worth several hundred thousand dollars. The beauty of a pearl is not merely aesthetic; it is also the uphill work of nature that makes it precious and desirable. These jewels are forged by time and by a very special mollusk, the pinctada margaritifera oyster. But it still requires a little human help for the oyster to produce a black pearl in under 18 months. A small bead, or nucleus, usually made of oyster shell, is dropped into the oyster. At the same time, a graft from a “donor” oyster is inserted. This is a semi-surgical task carried out by a certified grafter. While scarring, the grafted oyster forms a little sack around the nucleus to isolate it, secreting three to four layers of one micron of aragonite, or mother-of-pearl, each day, as a protective barrier. For the mollusk, it’s not about creating a jewel, but about protecting itself against a foreign object.

Once extracted, the pearls are classified according to their quality and colors, ranging from an iridescent white to a shade of shimmering green known as “fly’s wing,” the most sought-after hue, containing all the colors of the rainbow. But the oysters haven’t finished their work after the first harvest: a new nucleus is introduced in each, then the oysters are strung together and released back into the lagoon to await the second harvest in twelve months’ time. An oyster can produce up to three or four pearls in its lifetime.

Before arriving in your jeweler’s window, the Tahitian black pearls have undergone an x-ray—the only way to verify that they are at least 0.8 mm mother-of-pearl, the standard imposed for exportation. Quality guaranteed!

BY VERONIQUE COUZINOU
Maison de la France FRANCE GUIDE

La Vanillere
www.lavanillere.com 

Arii Creation
www.arii-creation.com

Musée de la Perle Robert Wan, Papeete
tel. 689 689 45 21 22

Vairua Pearl Farm, Raiatea
tel. 689 689 68 42 57
www.multimania.com/blackpearls

Photo credits: Tahiti-tourisme.com