Akoya Pearls

The term Akoya refers to nucleated saltwater pearls cultivated in the Pinctada fucata martensii oyster. The first pearls were cultured in Japan, where the techniques for growing pearls were developed about a hundred years ago.

Only one pearl at a time grows in the Akoya oyster and the period of cultivation is between eight months and two years.

The Akoya shell is no bigger than the palm of a hand and is found mainly in Japan, Korea and China. Its pearls generally grow from 2mm to 9mm, or very rarely 10mm.

The majority of Akoya pearls harvested are round in shape. However, other shapes like baroque, button, oval, drop etc. can also be found.

The base colours in Akoya pearls are primarily white, cream and yellow. Most of the pearls are bleached to remove impurities and often they are also tinted to make their colour more homogeneous. There is a small harvest of naturally blue pearls, in contrast to the treated blue pearls. There are no natural black Akoya pearls! The most rare and expensive colours are the white pink or silver pink. The cheapest are the yellow.