A Freshwater Cultured Pearl Farm

This is part of the Freshwater Pearls Made Simple series where we offer short posts to demystify this unique variety of Cultured Pearls.  Visit our post on Confusing Words You Need to Know if some of the terms used below are unfamiliar.

For the sake of keeping things simple, we are going to break Cultured Pearls down into the three main varieties you will see mentioned throughout this series.

Akoya Pearls – Known as the traditional pearl, Akoya Pearls are grown in salt water in Japan and China.  Each pearl is grown inside of a small mollusk, using a round mother-of-pearl bead as a nucleus to ensure a round pearl and are almost always white in color.  They are small to medium pearls, ranging from 4MM to 10MM in size and each mollusk will only grow one or two pearls in its lifetime.  While top Akoya Pearls are extremely expensive and have fine luster, we often find that the middle and lower quality of pearls can be dull or chalky due to an insufficient coating of nacre, which is usually less than 10% natural pearl growth.

South Sea and Tahitian Pearls – Using a similar mother-of-pearl bead nucleation, these larger Cultured Pearls are grown one pearl per mollusk in giant oysters in South Sea countries such as Australia, Indonesia and of course, Tahiti.  These larger mollusks allow for some of the largest pearl sizes spanning 9MM-20MM with a much higher nacre thickness than Akoya at about 15-20%.  This category of pearls are the hardest (and therefore most expensive) to grow in high quality as large pearls have a higher mortality rate and more surface area which can become blemished.  The South Sea Pearls are found in various shades of white as well as gold colors and the Tahitian pearls offer a range of natural blacks and gray.  Both categories offer a range of shapes from round, baroque and drop pearls.

Freshwater Pearls – While we will cover this in depth in our next post, this remarkable variety of pearls offers the widest ranges of natural colors, shapes and sizes, spanning 4MM to 18MM.  With over 90%, they have the highest nacre content of any nucleated Cultured Pearl and can grow up to 40 pearls at a time in one mollusk using a newer process for cultivating pearls called tissue nucleation.  The ability to grow multiple pearls per mollusk is a major factor in making Freshwater Pearls one of the best values in pearl jewelry.

Now that you know the three main varieties of Cultured Pearls, we plan to focus in on Freshwater from here on out.  If you have any questions on the other varieties of Cultured Pearls, let us know in the comments section and check back soon for an in depth look at Freshwater Pearls.