The Story Of The Biwa Pearls Of Japan

The fame and repute of the Biwa pearls can be imagined from the simple fact that

until a few years ago, when not many different types of pearls had been found, almost all the different types of freshwater or lake and river pearls were assigned the name of Biwa pearls in popular imagination. It is also one of the oldest 20 lakes in the world and this has contributed significantly into the evolution of a unique ecosystem in the lake.

To go by the nomenclature and history, Lake Biwa is the name of a very large and ancient lake that is fed by a network of rivers consisting of over 500 rivers, tributaries and streams in total. Lake Biwa has been used to culture freshwater pearls from around 1914. Being the largest freshwater lake in Japan, in the subsequent decades, the population and pollution pressure on the river as a source of water and waste release increased which resulted in the decline of the pearl culture and production.

In the heyday, Lake Biwa had the capacity of producing more than 6000 kilograms of pearls in a year. When the conditions worsened, a large number of mollusks could not survive and this caused a significant blow to the production of the Biwa pearls.

Biwa Pearls were well known for their brownish and purple colors with high shine. Biwa pearls were nucleated as most of the fresh water pearls are nucleated these days. They were set with a piece of a soft mantle tissue that lined the inner walls of the shell. This technique however differed from the nucleation of the salt water pearls which had to be set with the round piece of the mother of pearl. The soft tissue nucleation created a pearl that was all nacre, and is was more of a natural pearl.

Nowadays, after the decline of Biwa pearls in Japan, people have turned to Lake Kasumigaura. They employ a cross between the remaining Biwa mollusks and the newer Chinese mollusks. Some of the mollusks from this lake are nucleated with Akoya pearls that were rejected.

Japan was once the leader in the production of pearls but because of the environmental concerns, the rising costs and pollution, culturing of pearls has come down by significant numbers. Once a leader in all types of freshwater as well as saltwater pearls Japan now produces mainly just the Akoya pearls. Japan has also become a major distributor of the Akoya pearls cultured in China.

by: kathleen

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