BWeaves Amazing Journey to Japanese Pearl Farms

[BWeaves]

Yens. Well said. Thank you for your insight.

 

[Yens]

Japanese pearl farming is in a very complex situation right now. Many of the traditional skills have not been passed down to the next generation, and there is little interest among younger people in continuing the craft. At the same time, market trends are now heavily influenced by Chinese consumers, who purchase in high volume and are shifting how the trade operates.

One issue that does not get talked about enough is how certification has evolved. Many in Japan are reluctant to admit that they played a role in weakening the value of certificates. As demand for certified goods increased, especially after COVID, the labs responded by issuing more certificates to meet market appetite. The problem is that this also led to a wider range in quality within the same certificate name. Certified goods now sell immediately to Chinese buyers, while high-quality, uncertified strands often sit longer and sell for less, simply because they lack a certificate.

In contrast, the U.S. wholesale market is less dependent on certification. Many buyers here are trained to evaluate pearls visually and make purchasing decisions based on the quality they see, not just a certificate. Certification can be helpful, but it is not the deciding factor.

It is also important to remember that only a limited number of true Hanadama or Tennyo-grade strands are produced each year. When you see smaller companies at the Kobe trade show offering large quantities of certified strands, it is likely that their goods fall at the lower end of the quality range. These companies usually do not have the buying power of larger manufacturers, who can sort through massive volumes of pearls to assemble the highest quality matched strands. Fewer pearls mean fewer chances to create exceptional pieces.

The solution is not to abandon certification altogether, but rather to tighten the standards and issue fewer, more meaningful certificates. That would help restore confidence in what designations like Hanadama and Tennyo are meant to represent.

 

[pattye]

Yens, thank you for your thorough explanations and unique perspective. So much to consider. Please tell us more about the hybrid white tissue mollusks.

 

[BWeaves]

Yens, thank you.

 

[Tiger]

Wow, wow, wow, what a fantastic trip! Thank you so much for your detailed trip report. Really, the journey of a lifetime. I swooned when I saw those Rikitea pearls. Spectacular!

 

[pearlgirl12]

First up, what to wear? I knew I had to wear akoya pearls for this trip. Plus, I wanted to make sure that everyone important to me was represented.

From the top!

Mikimoto earrings.
Little h emerald and pearl tin-cup and little h emerald and soufflé pearl enhancer, all made by Hisano.
Natural white Hanadama rope bought from Jeremy at Pearl Paradise.
South Sea, Japanese akoya, and Chinese freshwater pearl tin-cup from Sarah at Kojima Pearl.
Peacock Tahitian ring from Kamoka Pearl Farm, bought from Tevai's mother Celeste.
Vintage akoya pearl ring inherited from my mother. She would have loved this trip.

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I love the pearls that made the cut

 

[pearlgirl12]

Tuesday, 3-June-2025

Jeremy, Hisano, and I walked around the covered streets that were like a shopping mall, next to our hotel. We found a store selling pearls, so of course we had to check it out. One strand was very, very pink.

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We asked them to take it out for us to look at closer.

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The surface quality of the pearls was not great, and the pearls were small. But it was the color that was so unusual.

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These pearls are nucleated with pink coral!!!! Notice the coral in the Sango Pearl logo.

Here are two pearls cut in half. The bottom pearl is a typical akoya pearl with a white shell bead nucleus and white akoya nacre surrounding it. The top pearl has a coral bead nucleus surrounded by akoya pearl nacre. Normally akoya pearls are bleached and then pinked (dyed pink). But the Sango pearls are not dyed. The pink color comes from the coral showing through the pearl nacre. The nacre is quite thin on this sample pearl.


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This pair of earrings were the only pearls where they had drilled away the nacre so you could see the coral bead at the center. They cost about $190 USD.

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I was tempted, but it was my first few hours in Japan, and I knew there was more to come. Plus, they were very small, and I suffer from PSS (Pearl Shrinkage Syndrome) where I keep wanting my pearls bigger and bigger.

This fascinated me. I have a lot of coral. I would have lunged at the pearl studs. They are so darn cute/funky. I'll keep reading to see where this is going. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[pearlgirl12]

At 7:15 p.m. we met Nathalie and Helena in the lobby of the hotel. And Jeremy's friend, Takashi, took us out for a multi course, traditional Japanese meal. Private room. Tatami mats. We sat on the floor. AMAZING food. I have no idea what I ate although it was explained to me at time.

Helena, Jeremy, Andy.

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Takashi, Hisano, Ruby. Notice the clear glass carafes and clear cups.

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Hisano, Ruby, and Nathalie.

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Nathalie and Helena ordered cold sake, which was served in clear glass carafes and clear cups. I ordered the hot sake which was served in . . .

PORNOGRAPHY ALERT!!!!!!

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It was during this meal that I found out that Takashi owns The Akoya Pearl Company, and it was he who made my natural white Hanadama rope!!! He said he never finds out who ends up with his pearls, because he's a middle man, so he was thrilled to see me wearing them. And I'm always thrilled to know exactly where my pearls came from. This next photo was from later in the trip, when we took a photo together.

The Akoya Pearl Company is a smaller version of what we saw at Otsuki, which I'll tell you about later. They do the full processing, drilling, sorting, and matching etc. The Akoya Pearl Company specializes in the top quality akoya pearls -- Hanadama, Tenyo, GranPearl, etc. etc.

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Oh, about my shawl. I'm a hand weaver. It's the "Weaves" in BWeaves. It's not my name.

The shawl is handwoven from my own handspun yarn. The yarn is hand spun from pearl fiber. This is rayon made from ground up pearls (or possibly parts of the shell) instead of the rayon being made from bamboo or cotton. The rayon process involves dissolving the ground pearls in a solution and then extruding the liquid through holes. The liquid then hardens into fine, silk like fibers that can be spun into thread.

I embroidered the shawl with 2mm tiny keshi from Wen Pearls.

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Beautiful!

 

[pearlgirl12]

And I'm only halfway through DAY 1 !!!!

I'll post more tomorrow.

This was a true pilgrimage. I took out my Akoyas to remind myself just how amazing they are.

 

[pearlgirl12]

Our group took up the main lodge building. The Japanese contingent stayed in rooms right across the one lane street.

At 7 p.m. we met in the Lodge's restaurant. Since we were the only occupants, we had the whole small place to ourselves, and we filled it. The restaurant is attached to the Lodge, and we had to change out of our cloth slippers, and into the restaurant's rubber slippers, in order to enter the restaurant. It was another multi-course gourmet meal. This restaurant served a combination of homemade pizza (we could see the wood fired pizza oven from our seats), pasta, unique foods, and Japanese foods.

I ate with Yuko Yamashita (professor of Marketing at Hitotsubashi University), Yumiko Ijchi (JPEA Executive Director), Helena, and Nathalie. We had a fun women's table with lots of laughter. The courses were:

Potato puree (potatoes were from the terraced farm).
Japanese sweet potato with crunchy salt and then a bit of whisky poured over the top. DELICIOUS. A new way to enjoy whisky!
Salad of grilled cabbage, and veg we picked earlier in the day.
I was served a vegan pizza with the herbs we picked earlier today. (I can't eat dairy, and they made me special dishes.)
The others had tomato and cheese pizza. The dough for the pizza was amazingly good.
Then they got a goat cheese and kumquat pizza drizzled with local honey.

Now at that point, you might think the kumquat pizza was a dessert pizza. We certainly did. But we were wrong.

Deer meat pate' with focaccia. (I'm normally vegetarian, but I decided to eat everything because I wanted to experience the whole of Japan.)

They had a lot of deer in the area, so we got served a lot of venison. It was delicious, by the way. I also have a lot of deer in my backyard in Florida, and they eat my new plants, so this was revenge.

Pasta with squid ink and octopus. It was very dark purple.

Pork and beef rolled in layers like a jelly roll. I was told it was delicious and very tender, but I was so full at that point that I couldn't eat another bite.

Now we're served dessert. Everyone was served a scoop of strawberry sorbet with strawberries on top. I was served something different. It was a scoop of what looked like deer meat pate'. I asked if I could have what they're having, and I was told the strawberry sorbet had dairy in it. My flavor was coffee. It was very strong coffee, and I'm not a coffee drinker, and it was not my cup of tea, so to speak. I passed it around for everyone to taste, but everyone was laughing so hard because I thought it was deer meat pate'. It really did look like the pate'. No, really!

Foodie me is really enjoying this.

 

[pearlgirl12]

Friday, 6-June-2025

Moving day. I woke up at 5 a.m. again and packed. I went downstairs and spun silk until 8 a.m. Today's breakfast was a traditional Japanese breakfast, so there was no problem with there being any dairy in it.

Miso soup
Raw egg on rice. No, it's not gross. The rice is hot, and when you mix it up, the heat cooks the egg. It's very good.
Eggplant and tofu
Umaboshi plum. I love these. They're actually a very tart pickle.
Seaweed and cucumber salad. I love seaweed.
Fermented soybean paste

None of us wanted to leave, but we had to. And we had to leave by 10:40 a.m. on the dot before the road closed again for construction.

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At one point we met a car coming towards us, and they had to back down the road until it was wide enough for us to pass. I'm not sure if they made it through before the road closed.

I do the rice and egg thing as comfort food, with a little drizzle of toasted sesame oil

 

[pearlgirl12]

After wandering around the Mikimoto museum by ourselves, we found out that the director of the museum had been waiting for us for an hour in the library. Hisano said she'd never seen so many books about pearls, but they were all in Japanese. Most of us bought "Pearl Book" by Shigeru Akamatsu, put out by the Japan Pearl Promotion Society. It cost 5000 Yen, but they gave us a discount, so we paid 4500 Yen. I finally spent some of my Yen.

And then the director brought out trays with 17th, 18th, and 19th century natural pearl jewelry from the vaults. These were not pieces that were on display. These were not Mikimoto cultured pearls. These were real, old, natural pearl pieces. And he let us touch them and try them on! This was very unexpected.

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That Swan called me immediately.

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This is probably a natural Mississippi River feather pearl.

Ruby in the 19th century Sartoir.

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The pendant alone was gorgeous, but the way the necklace was strung was amazing. The natural pearls are incredibly well matched.

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Helena in a 19th century snake necklace. It looked very Bulgari, except this is much older than their designs. The Victorians were really into snake jewelry. Queen Victoria's engagement ring was a snake with emerald eyes.

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Nathalie in the snake necklace.

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17th century pendant.

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18th or 19th century.

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19th century turquoise and pearl.

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Gold stone brooch.

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19th century.

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The only thing they wouldn't let me try on was the pearl tiara. It was too delicate.

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I love the writing in the fitted case: Practical Jeweler to the Queen.

Because that parure (matching tiara and jewelry) is soooooo practical.

The antique pieces were delicious.

 

[pearlgirl12]

IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

The JPF started at 10 a.m. today. At 10:15 a.m. we went to Tatsu Kuramoto's booth for a lecture on pearl quality. Tatsu is VP of JPEA as well as a pearl vendor.

Tatsu told us that the Hanadama certificates have become meaningless. Ten years ago (2015) when I bought my natural white Hanadama necklace from Pearl Paradise, the Hanadama certificate from PSL (Pearl Science Laboratory) really meant something. It gave all the information about the pearls I bought. But then everyone started wanting a certificate when they bought pearls, and the PSL started certifying lower and lower quality pearls with Hanadama certificates. Now, someone buying a Hanadama strand might be offered a really top quality strand for $5000 USD, and their daughter would whisper in their ear about something they saw on the Internet where a Hanadama strand could be had for $2000 USD. Suddenly, they thought they were being cheated, and they would buy the cheaper strand from someone else, not realizing that it was a lower quality strand of pearls.

Tatsu said that he no longer certifies any of his pearls. He wants people to judge each strand on its own merit, and not go with a strand just because it has a certificate.

Takashi told us that the Tenyo certificates, and Granpearl, and some of the other names that are being used recently for the top of the line Hanadama pearls, are basically to get back to what Hanadama used to mean. The names are different because each pearl lab that grants certificates has their own naming conventions.

Jeremy and Hisano bought some natural white Hanadamas from Takahashi Pearl Company. I wanted to compare, so I took off my 10 year old natural white Hanadama rope and laid it down next to the other pearls. The vendor immediately looked at my strand and said, "They don't make them like that anymore." And I understood why.

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Then we went into a 2 hour recorded interview with Yuko Yamashita. She is a professor of Marketing at Hitotsubashi University. She was interviewing us about our views on how best to market akoya pearls to the world. About how akoya pearls are viewed around the world. Are they luxury items, or are they considered beads. Do people really understand where pearls come from. Do they understand that cultured pearls are real pearls? Do they understand that akoya oysters filter the water, and provide a better environment for the fish and wildlife in the ocean? This makes pearl farming sustainable. What do they think sustainable really means? I think most people do not know enough about pearls or the culturing process. And that's why I'm writing this lengthy post about my trip. To get the word out about akoya pearls. Several of my friend didn't even know that cultured pearls were real pearls. We need to educate the public better.

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At 6 p.m. we went to meet the teachers and students of the Japanese version of the Pearls as One course. Their course is in person with live teachers. We each gave a short talk about ourselves.

At 7 p.m. Takashi took us out for another multi-course gourmet meal that couldn't be beat. Betty Sue King joined us. We took up the entire tiny restaurant. The food was very artfully prepared and unusual. Sake for everyone. We were toasting, "Cheen! Cheen!" Finally I asked what "cheen" meant. Jeremy said it was Chinese for . . .

PORNOGRAPHY ALERT!








"Penis! Penis!"

IT WASN'T ME THIS TIME! OKAY! It wasn't me.

I think we all bonded, because we had the same sense of humor.

Nathalie shows me how it's done. "Trust the process!"

I passed around my travel diary for everyone to sign. I'm hopeless at keeping a regular diary or a blog, but I always keep a travel diary when I travel because I don't remember from one hour to the next what I did. My little book is packed with information. This is the first time I've ever transferred that information online. I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

OH, I forgot to mention my pearl purchase. Honestly, everything I was attracted to, I already had. Or, it was way out of my price range (Ritikea, cough, cough). Everyone kept grabbing me to advise them on pearls. I had fun spending everyone else's money, and helping them pick out pearls. But for me, whatever I bought needed to be something unique that I did not already own.

Yuko wore a very interesting ring which I liked, and I found one similar in style. Mine has two blue baroque akoya pearls set in 18K white gold.

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My husband said, "I want to see this ring you bought." And then, "WOW! You can really see INTO the pearls." He gets it, and he's not even a pearl person. When you see pearls with really thick nacre and incredible orient and luster, you truly understand the beauty of pearls.

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Thank you- new places, good food, pearls, pearls, and pearls! I enjoyed reading all of this!

 

[BWeaves]

And there's more!!!

Right after the trip to Japan, I immediately flew to Cleveland, OH for BRAIDS 2025, an international Kumihimo (Japanese braiding) conference. Of course, I was underdressed for the banquet. I'm too embarrassed to post a photo what I was wearing at the conference. Her obijime (the thin braid around her waist) was handmade by her.

When I got back, there was a package waiting for me, that Hisano had forwarded to me. Erika Hashimoto, who I met at the JPF '06 (Japan Pearl Fair), had sent me a gift of one of her pearl pins. She wraps a knot of silk Kumihimo around an akoya pearl and mounts it as a pin. What a treasure!

I sent her a photo of my current Kumihimo project on my Takadai (high braiding stand). My braid is called Kikko (Tortoiseshell pattern).

The braiding stand is called a Takadai (high stand). The bamboo sword is called a Tou. The Tou is hanging on a peg on the right front leg of the Takadai. The top of the stand is called a Torii, just like the gates at the Shinto shrines. The lead weighted bobbins that hold the threads are called Tama. The things with the pins that keep the tama in order are called Koma. I can pull a chair up and sit inside the Takadai. The Japanese versions have a board inside the Takadai to kneel on.

Here's Erika at the JPF '06 with one of her pins.

 

[Jacqlyn]

I normally read and don’t post, but I have to say that reading about your trip was DELIGHTFUL!

 

[BWeaves]

More new information!!! I'm reading "Pearl Book" that I bought at the Mikimoto Museum and I just learned a lot about the difference between, blister pearls, blisters, and what Mabe' pearls are and are not. Click on the photo below to read the full post.

Thread 'What are Mabe' pearls?'

Today at 8:15 AM

I thought I knew what Mabe' pearls were. I was wrong.

Here are my mother's Mabe' pearls. 2 pairs of earrings and an enhancer. You can see the mother of pearl covering the backside.

I just started reading the "Pearl Book" that I bought from the Mikimoto Museum during my Japan trip. The "Pearl Standard" had eye opening information for me about the difference between blister pearls, blisters, and Mabe' pearls. And Mabe' pearls aren't what I thought they were.

I thought Mabe' pearls were cultured blisters which had the nucleus...

• BWeaves
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• Forum: Pearl Books and Resources

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[lary007]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about your trip!