Beauty of Pearls

Freshwater pearl cultivation originated in Lake Biwa, Japan in 1914. For over half a century, pearls from this lake enjoyed status as the most beautiful in the world. Sadly, around the mid-1970s, pearl production in Lake Biwa began to decline then nearly ceased to exist. The primary cause was environmental pollution.  Meanwhile, Lake Kasumi ga Ura has emerged as one of Japan’s only freshwater pearl producing bodies of water. The widest variety of pearl shapes and colors are produced in freshwater pearl cultivation using mussels. This was begun experimentally in Japan in the 1920s and 30s. They come from freshwater mussels.

Fresh Water Pearls

Apart from Japan, China has dominated the freshwater pearl industry since the 1970s, and the fierce competition there has led to prices ranging from incredibly cheap to reasonable, along with constant innovation to create new and different varieties.

Freshwater pearls are produced by mussels and oysters that live in rivers, lakes or ponds.  They are mostly cultivated. To culture pearls, skilled workers open mussel shells just a slight crack, and insert smell pieces of live mantle tissue from another mussel into tiny slits made in the mantle. Depending on their position and the length of time they are left in the mussels, they will tend to be either oval-drop-barrel or lentil-button-flat. Colors include some whitish, but most are in the peach-pink-lavender range with occasional flecks of gold or brown-green pond slime color. A variety of factors affect determine the shape and quality of pearls. These include the conditions in which the oyster or mussel is raised, the health of the host, water temperature and quality, etc.