There is a moment, just after the rain, when the hills of Malawi turn green again. The red earth darkens, the air grows heavy, and the ground begins to shimmer with hidden color. Beneath that surface lies the source of a very meaningful project: a single hillside mine that produces garnets in three remarkable shades: magenta, rosé, and peach.
When Daniel Assaf, part-owner of the mine, first introduced us to the material, he described it as “not rhodolite”, which is the term most gem labs default to. This gem was something altogether its own. The hue carried no trace of brown, no dull undertone. It was alive, flashing between pink and purple in a way that felt almost electric. He called it Magenta Garnet, and the name stayed.
From the hillside, the rough glows in the sunlight. Each crystal is a fragment of color, waiting to reveal its brilliance.
Laboratory analyses classify this material as rhodolite, a blend of pyrope and almandine garnet, yet its chemistry tells a richer story. With an estimated 20% spessartite content (the orange member of the garnet family), it has a slightly higher refractive index, which gives the stones their unmistakable sparkle. The combination of pink and purple tones, untouched by brown or burgundy, makes this material a fine expression of its kind: vivid, balanced, and full of light.
The mine itself sits in a small, rural community where farming once defined every season. When operations began, it brought a rare kind of structure and opportunity. Men and women who had spent their lives tending fields began working side by side in a new rhythm: washing rough, sorting crystals, and learning to read color by eye. Many of the workers were women, and their laughter carried across the site in the evenings, when music and group singing replaced machinery.
At day's end, music replaces machinery. The women of the village gather to celebrate the day's work, a rhythm of pride and community that carries through every parcel.
Safety and sustainability were always at the center. Instead of blasting, the team used a method called crackamite, an expanding grout poured into drilled holes that gently breaks the rock without damaging the gems or the ground. It was slower, but it preserved the integrity of the material and the well-being of the people mining it.
A careful science, Crackamite replaces explosives, expanding gently within the rock to free the garnet without harming the stone or the earth.
Most of what the earth offered wasn’t gem-clean. The majority of the rough became cabochon or bead material, but within each batch were flashes of brilliance. Small, clean crystals with the perfect balance of pink and purple light were found sporadically. Those rare pieces were cut with care and set aside, each one a record of its origin.
Mining continues sporadically now, following the rhythm of the rains. The hill gives less than it once did, but what it yields remains extraordinary. Every parcel tells the story of that village, the women who bring life into it, of the people who worked together to bring color from the soil, and of the quiet pride that comes from seeing it polished into brilliance.
For us at Prima, the Malawi Magenta Garnet isn’t just another gem. It is proof that beauty can emerge from modest places and that every hand along the journey leaves a trace of its brilliance behind.