The shining green tsavorite is a young gemstone with a very long geological history. Its home is the East-African bushland along the border between Kenya and Tanzania. The few mines lie in a uniquely beautiful landscape of arid grassland with bare, dry hills. It's dangerous country, the habitat of snakes, and now and then a lion patrols, on the lookout for prey. There, near the world-famous Tsavo National Park, that history began.

  

The colour range of the tsavorite includes a springlike light green, an intense blue-green and a deep forest green - colours which have a refreshing and invigorating effect on the senses. However, this gemstone is also valuable on account of its great brilliance. It has, like all the other garnets, a particularly high refractive index (1.734/44). Not without reason did they use to say in the old legends that a garnet was a difficult thing to hide. Its sparkling light was said to remain visible even through clothing.

Unlike many other gemstones, the tsavorite is neither burnt nor oiled. This gemstone is not in need of any such treatment. Like all the other garnets it is simply a piece of pure, unadulterated Nature. Another positive characteristic is its robustness. It has almost the same hardness as the (considerably more expensive) emerald, - approximately 7.5 on the Mohs scale - but it is markedly less sensitive. That is an important feature not only when it comes to the stone's being set but also in its being worn. A tsavorite is not so likely to crack or splinter as a result of an incautious movement. It is well suited to the popular 'invisible setting', in which the stones are set close by one another, a technique which ought not to be used with the more sensitive emerald. Thanks to its great brilliance, the tsavorite is, in this respect, a partner to match the classics: diamond, ruby and sapphire.

Only in rare individual cases is a raw crystal of over 5 carats found, so a cut tsavorite of more than two carats is a rare and precious thing. But then that is one of the special features of this gemstone: that it can display its great luminosity even in small sizes.

                                                 
There's something very special about this young gemstone with the very long history. With its fresh, vivid green, its good wearing qualities, great brilliance and relatively reasonable prices, it is surely one of the most convincing and honest gemstones that exist