Cultured Pearls - the beginning.
The Pearls formed by this miraculous process so entranced man,that just in the same way he tried Alchemy to create gold, he sought to find a way to induce Molluscs to produce pearls on demand.
The name given to the process of inducing molluscs to produce pearls is Culturing or Perliculture-hence Cultured Pearls.
| It is said that the first rudimentary pearl culturing took place in China as early as the thirteenth century and involved Buddhist Monks inserting carved images of the Buddha into the shell of freshwater mussels. At the end of the nineteenth century Kokichi Mikimoto, Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa independently started experimenting with ways of cajoling native Japanese Akoya oysters into producing fine, lustrous and very saleable pearls. |
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After many years of setbacks.enhancement and developments, the first fully round Cultured Pearls hit the market commercially in the early 1920’s-and boy did they make a splash!
The basic process, developed through a series of patents and eventual amalgamation of techniques by Mikimoto, originally used wild oysters fished from waters around the Ise penisular by female Ama divers.
The Ama would risk the Shark infested waters; free-diving to retrieve the Shells.On returning to the surface the women,traditionally clad in white,would deposit them in floating circular wooden tubs attached to their ankles by a rope.
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The Ama were used for collecting wild oyster until the early 1960's.Thereafter baby oysters-known as Spat, were bred in glass tanks in laboratories specifically for Pearl Culturing. When the Spat are large enough to survive in the wild they are transferred into baskets suspended by rafts in the culturing waters until reaching maturity at about 2 years old. |
| Once considered ready,the oysters are collected and the shells carefully pegged open.Next a bead nucleus together with a small piece of mantle tissue-or graft, from the edge of a donor oyster is introduced via a small incision into the reproductive area. This is carried out by a highly skilled technician known as a “Grafter” who carries out the process using antiseptic conditions. The inclusion of the graft tissue is vital and the key to the culturing process. The shells are then carefully closed and the oyster returned to the sea. Through experimentation, the nucleus found to give the best result was a bead produced from the shell of the Pig Toe mussel, native to the Mississippi River. |
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After nucleation, the oysters are initially kept in shallow waters to allow for recovery. Several weeks later they are transferred to moored suspension rafts, which keep the molluscs contained in nets at the depth at which the temperature is conducive for best nacre production.This is known as "grow out". The netted oysters are tended and nurtured,checked for parasites and generally kept in good health. |
| The longer the oysters are kept suspended the better quality the resulting pearls, unfortunately this also means an increase in the possibility of oyster loss through natural hazards such as infection or predation (Starfish are very fond of Oyster meat!),which results in fewer and correspondingly higher priced pearls. Actual culturing times can vary from a few months to several years,often depending on either marine factors,or more prosaically, pure economic ones. |
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Harvesting is carried out during the coldest time of the year, when the lustre of the pearl is at its best. When the farmer considers the time is right the Oyster is removed from the sea, opened and the pearl carefully extracted. It is only then the farmer can see if all his hard work has paid off. |
For decades this technique of Culturing Seawater or Akoya Pearls was seen as a national treasure and kept a closely guarded secret by Mikimoto, who emerged as the kingpin of the industry and one of the worlds first branding and marketing wizards.
Eventually other Japanese discovered the culturing techniques and started their own production.
It took many years before the secret finally leaked out to other nations-notably and inevitably China, who have been now been producing Akoya Pearls of increasing quality for over 25 years.