| Strack says (page 416):
"Pearls from Lake Biwa rarely possess the neutral, light hues of Japanese Akoya cultured pearls. They are, like natural freshwater pearls, either strikingly white or have pastel tones to distinct fancy colours."
But then she also mentions bleaching later on the page and that the reason "might have been that white pearls were valued higher in Japan until a few decades ago."
So, the whiteness could be natural.
Or not. |