For thousands of years, pearls have been worn by people the world over as decoration and as a manifestation of their wealth and power. They are the oldest jewel known to man, and the only gem made by a living animal. Starting from the early 1900s, pearls have been produced through the process of cultivation, which brought their prices down and made them accessible to more consumers.

The roots of the pearling industry lie in Japan, from where the practice spread to such countries as Australia, Tahiti, Indonesia, China and the Philippines. In 1968, China took the gem world by surprise by flooding the market with huge amounts of very inexpensive cultured pearls. However, the quality of this initial wave of Chinese pearls left something to desire. Since the 1990s, China has developed new high-quality pearl products which experts say have revolutionized the entire industry.

Success in the pearling industry stems from skillfully combining different pearl species, as well as from continued development of farming methods and pearl products. The types of pearls available range from inexpensive freshwater pearls to highly desirable South Sea Pearls.

The pearl industry is subject to many factors that can either make or break a business. As with most aquaculture, pearl farms are greatly impacted by weather conditions and diseases, among others. Another challenge is the fact that this industry, which centers on farming oysters, caters to the luxury jewelery market instead of the food market: a distinction that many countries have long attempted to underline through legislative measures.

The pearl capital of China

The production and cultivation of freshwater pearls has long been dominated by China. The country's pearl industry is mainly concentrated in the coastal province of Zhejiang.

Pearls are cultivated in lakes, rivers and ponds in Zhejiang. (Image: China News Service)According to khulsey.com, Chinese freshwater pearls cultivated in Zhejiang's lakes, rivers, and ponds are called "Biwa pearls," after their freshwater Japanese counterparts from Lake Biwa in Japan.

Zhejiang is located in the delta of the Yangtze river in southern China. The province boasts hundreds of freshwater pearl farms which are carefully protected against pollution from the surrounding industrial plants.

The main pearl trading center in Zhejiang province is located in Zhuji city's Shanxiahu Village, 250 kilometers south of Shanghai. One of the largest freshwater pearl producers in the Zhejiang region is Grace Pearl.

Freshwater and saltwater pearls

Cultivated freshwater pearls are made by placing a small piece of mantle tissue, the fleshy oyster lip that secretes the chemical nacre, from one mussel into another. This stimulates the oyster's own production of nacre, which results in the chemical accumulating in layers around the "invading parasite" to form a pearl.

The advantage of freshwater pearl production is that freshwater mollusks can produce many more pearls than their saltwater counterparts. In general, freshwater mollusks can produce up to fifty pearls. A common Chinese freshwater pearl is the small and oblong shaped rice pearl, although there are also Chinese pearls in round or close to round shapes.

China's major saltwater pearl farms are located in the south on the Leizhou Peninsula in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. The pearls there are produced using saltwater Akoya mollusks. As mentioned earlier, the weakness of these mollusks is their low pearl output, which only reaches a maximum of four or five.

Due to the low availability of saltwater pearls, their prices have soared. On the other hand, China has significantly boosted its production of large freshwater pearls, which has brought their prices down, thus making such pearl markets as the Yuyuan 'Pearl's Circles' market in the Shanghai Tianyu Tower or the Hongqiao Pearl Market in Beijing real treasure chests for bargain hunting tourists.

Pearls in traditional Chinese ceremonies

Prices of saltwater pearls have soared because of low supply. (Image: China News Service)Pearls appear in Chinese historical records starting from the Qing dynasty. When a member of the imperial family died, the custom was to place a large pearl into the mouth of the deceased to protect the corpse from decomposition.

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835 - 1908) was China's most famous pearl enthusiast. Stories have it that when she died, a pearl the size of a robin's egg was placed in her mouth. An abundance of other precious stones and jewelry was also placed in her coffin before it was taken to the Qing Tombs in Hebei province. Unfortunately, in 1928 the tomb was pillaged and the jewelry was lost.

Growing business

A number of China's most significant pearl cultivators from the mainland and Hong Kong are now joining forces to form the nation's largest pearl trading center called the China Pearls and Jewelry City (CPJC) in Zhuji, where the pearl industry is regarded as one of the fastest growing industries. The center will occupy an area of approximately 1.2 million square meters and host about 5,000 shops and booths upon completion, China Daily writes.

Pearl cultivation farms in Zhuji occupy a combined total area of over 250 million square meters, with over 3,000 pearl cultivation companies employing about 15,000 people, producing over 30 million pieces of pearl jewelry, 8 million pieces of pearl handicrafts and 65 tons of pearl powder annually.

Pearl cultivation is also flourishing in Hainan, which currently produces some of China's highest quality saltwater pearls.