How many kinds of pearls?

As pearls are developed in living creatures, depend on where the creatures live and how the pearls are developed, they are divided into several types.

Due to the developing process of pearls, they are divided as natural pearls and cultured pearls. Natural pearls are the most expensive ones, and they are hard to find now. Normally, the pearls you see in the stores are cultured pearls. Though natural pearls are more expensive than the cultured ones, that doesn’t mean the quality of natural pearls are better than the cultural ones.

The pearls are basically listed into two catalogs: freshwater pearls and saltwater pearls.

We are going to discuss them separately.

Freshwater pearls: Though Biwa Pearls are famous as one of the first cultured freshwater pearls, Chinese freshwater pearls are also cultivated since the beginning of 1970s on the Yangtze River in eastern China. Nowadays, about 90% of freshwater pearls are produced in China. Freshwater pearls are the product of an elaborate process in which a single resilient mussel can be harvested many times and yielding several pearls at a time. Their shapes vary from rice-shape to round, typically off-round or round freshwater pearls are much resemble Akoya pearls, but the price is only about half of them, so they are quite beautiful and more affordable to most people.

Saltwater pearls: There are several common saltwater pearls we know

Akoya Pearls: Saltwater pearls from the Akoya oyster, which are usually cultured. These pearls are typically roundish, and their natural body colors normally range from light pink, to white, to yellowish. Even though they are often called Japanese pearls, they can also be found in oysters outside Japan. In fact, China has become the major producer of Akoya pearls less than 7 mm in size. Currently, most Akoya pearls over 7 mm are cultured in Japan. Akoya pearls are tend to range from 1-10mm.

South Sea Pearls: It’s sometimes used as a general term signifying any saltwater pearl found in the area extending from the Philippines and Indonesia down to Australia and across to French Polynesia. More often than not, it refers specifically to large white or yellow pearls cultured in the silver-lip or yellow-lip oyster found in the South Sea. Because of the rarity and sensitivity of this type of oysters, cultivation of these pearls is much more difficult and making them more expensive. South Sea pearls tend to range from 9-19mm. They are much larger than the average pearls. These are the rarest extraordinary pearls you can find in a jewelry store due to the exceptional smoothness and roundness of the pearls.

Tahitian Pearls: They are named after the tropical island of Tahiti, which is now farmed not only in Tahiti but the Cook Island and other places in the South Pacific as well. Tahitian pearls are larger than Akoya pearls because the oyster is larger. The oyster is very sensitive to the pearl culturing process, which makes the pearls very costly to produce. Tahitian pearls offer a dramatic touch and are famous for their natural black color. The color comes from the color of the oyster’s black lips, but it can range from metallic, silver to the color of black. And within the range of the color, they can have bluish, purplish or greenish overtones.