What Are Freshwater Pearls?
Freshwater
pearls are from freshwater while Akoya or saltwater pearls are from saltwater. The process of natural freshwater pearls occurring
is pretty much for the same reason that saltwater, except one occurs in mussels and the other in oysters. The
catalyst inserted to the oyster is just a very tiny piece of another oyster's mantle tissue instead of shell beads.
This foreign material would be entered into a mussel, and to reduce and resist the irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder
with the same secretion it uses for shell-building, nacre.
Freshwater pearls are totally different from any of other gemstones. They are similar to saltwater
pearls in terms of both of them are made of nature, but difference occurs as freshwater pearls are almost seedless, quite
similar to the wild natural pearl. A variety of factors determine shapes and quality of pearls such as the raising of infant
oyster, the health of oyster itself, ingredients in the water, water temperature, the inserting skill of workers, fertilization,
diseases prevention, etc.
How freshwater pearls are cultured?:
Because of scarcity and rareness for natural freshwater pearls, Japanese originated the first cultured freshwater
pearls originated in Japan. To culture freshwater waters, workers would slightly open mussels shells, cut small slits into
the mantle tissue inside both shells, and insert small pieces of live mantle tissue from another mussel into those slits.
In freshwater mussels that insertion alone is sufficient to start nacre production.
Most cultured freshwater pearls are composed entirely of nacre, just like their natural
freshwater and natural saltwater counterparts.
In
1950s, the Japanese experimented with freshwater mussels in a large lake near Kyoto. The all-nacre Biwa pearls formed in colors
unseen in saltwater pearls. Almost instantly appealing, their luster and luminescent depth rivaled naturals because they were
pearls throughout, just like natural freshwater pearls.
Freshwater cultured pearls in China:
The Japanese
dominated the cultured-pearl industry from 1950 to 1990. However because of industrial pollution and over development for
tourists around the area, the quality of Japanese cultured pearls is seriously challenged by freshwater pearls from China.
Because China has all the resources that Japan lacks: a huge land mass; countless available lakes, rivers, and irrigation
ditches; a limitless and pliable work force that earns much less than their counter part workers in Japan.
Today, the best and largest freshwater pearls producers are from China. Unlike poor pearl farmers
in 1990s who had to cultivate pearls with traditional method which was not economically effective. Nowadays, modern technology
and cutting edge techniques have been used for not only processing pearls, but also in cleaning, polishing, bleaching, drilling,
etc. to ensure the best quality of pearls, although most of stringing are still done by hand.
Today even most of Akoya pearls, labeled"Japanese Akoya", are actually imported
from China to Japan, and then be processed and labeled as made in Japan. All because of the high cost of Japanese labor incomparable
with the low cost of Chinese labor and materials.
We are a joint-venture cultivator owning thousands of acres of water surface here in China. By studying Japanese
pearl processing technique and investment in research and technology, China pearls processing technique is now superbly unique
in the world's pearl market. The transparence and luster of pearls becomes excellent through our way of processing.
Freshwater cultured pearls
and natural pearls:
The least expensive cultured pearl product in the market
today "rivals the quality of the most expensive natural pearls ever found." Not only because
the price-value anomaly that is obvious to consumers as they hasten to buy Chinese freshwater bargains, but also:
"Starting in the 1990s, China surprised the market with
products that are revolutionizing pearling. The shapes, luster, and colors of the new Chinese production often match original
Biwa quality and sometime even surpass it; certainly the new orange and peach-colored pearls are unique. As testimony to China's
achievement, their freshwater pearls are round enough and good enough to pass as Japanese akoya. China already sells round
white pearls up to 7mm for perhaps a tenth the price of Japanese cultured saltwater pearls."
The Chinese are nucleating mussels with their own tissue-cultured freshwater
pearls, which result in all-nacre round or almost round pearls. "Aiming for an even higher percentage of rounds, the
Chinese are even reshaping reject freshwater pearls into spheres, then nucleating mussels with them. That process and technique
has radically altered freshwater culturing, making saltwater and freshwater techniques indistinguishable."
Learn more
about China
pearls from PBS.
