It's a question we hear often, usually with a hint of suspicion behind it: if the gemstones are Ethiopian, why aren't they cut in Ethiopia? The honest answer is straightforward — we send rough material to Thailand because that is where the deepest, most specialised gem-cutting expertise in the world is concentrated, and we think a fine stone deserves to be cut by the people best equipped to realise its potential.
Chanthaburi's Sixty-Year Head Start
Chanthaburi, in eastern Thailand, has functioned as a global gem-cutting and trading hub since the mid-20th century. Generations of lapidaries there have built a bench of skill around exactly the kind of coloured stones we source: emerald, sapphire, tourmaline and more. That density of expertise, tooling and trading infrastructure doesn't exist yet at scale in Ethiopia's mining regions, where the industry is still comparatively young and mining, rather than lapidary work, is the primary local trade.
Reading a Stone Before Cutting It
A rough crystal is not a uniform block of colour. It has zoning, inclusions, and a natural crystallographic axis that determines how light will travel through the finished gem. An experienced lapidary studies these features before making a single cut, planning the shape and orientation of facets to maximise face-up colour and brilliance while preserving as much carat weight as the material reasonably allows. This is slow, deliberate work, and it's the reason a well-cut stone can look meaningfully better than a mediocre cut of the exact same rough.
Not a Compromise
We don't see this route as outsourcing or as a shortcut around Ethiopia. Ethiopia is where the geology, and the miners we work with, create the raw material in the first place — that origin is the foundation of everything we sell, and we document it. Thailand is simply where that material is given its final form by people who have spent their careers doing exactly that. As more cutting capacity develops within Ethiopia over time, we'll evaluate it the same way we evaluate any lapidary relationship: on the quality of the finished stone.
See the results on our Cut & Polished Gemstones page, or read about the material this particular stone came from in First Scientific Study Confirms Ethiopian Paraíba From Abuloo, Guji Zone.