China's Freshwater Pearls Farming History

Although it seems as though pearl culturing is a fairly new thing, and China's entry into perliculture is only 40 some odd years old. Actually the truth is that pearl culturing began in China as long ago as 700 years ago.

Records from that time describe the pearl blister techniques. A pearl blister or mabe' pearl is a pearl that is formed against the inside of the shell. The Chinese used to take a small cast lead Buddha, and place it inside the mussel's shell, and the mussel would coat the Buddhas with nacre.

Most of the time they would cut these little figures out and the jeweler would use the pearl coated figure in other jewelry. Sometimes the shells were sold whole without cutting them apart. These are still found today. The technique was to wedge open the mussel shell and slip the figure between the mantle and the shell. The farmers would care for them for 6 months or so and then harvest them.

Then the new age began sometime in the late 60's or early 70's. China burst onto the pearl market with literally tons of pearls, mostly the small wrinkled keshi pearls with the non-glamorous nickname of rice krispies or potato pearls named for their shape. However not all the pearls were inferior, 2 % of those tons were higher grades. Soon realizing that the better grades were the pace to put their energies, pearl farmers began to emulate the techniques of the now extinct pearl center of Lake Biwa, Japan.

Using similar techniques as the Japanese freshwater pearl farmers, they soon began culturing of the higher grades, shifting their attitudes about pearl farming; they oriented their production to quality and away from quantity. Now China is still improving the quality of freshwater pearls and their quality is rivaling the saltwater culturing of the akoya oyster.

Undoubtedly, with costs steadily increasing in Japan, if the quality continues to advance, China will lead the world in high grade pearl culture.

By Patrick Cavanaugh