Twelve Pearls gives everyone the opportunity to own and enjoy these stunning underwater gems. Our collection consists of Freshwater, Saltwater Akoya, Tahitian & South Sea Pearls. Whichever you choose, we're sure they will take pride of place in your jewellery collection and treasured forever.

Chinese vs Japanese Akoyas

The vast majority of Akoya pearls today come from China. Some companies still advertise their pearls as coming from Japan and charge a substantially higher price for them. This is quite deceptive, as most pearls that are bought from Japan have actually come from China!

Why is this happening?

From the beginning of the last century, Japan was indisputably the largest and best Akoya pearl farming country in the world. China tried to compete with this monopoly during the middle of the last century, but didn't have much success. As a result China produced incredibly inferior Akoya pearls.

In recent history, this has all changed.

Japan has had significant problems with their pearl farms. Mainly due to pollution and disease in their waterways, which has wiped out a lot of their farms, they are unable to compete with China's production. In the last 5 years or so, China has drastically improved their farming techniques and are now producing quality Akoya pearls equivalent to Japanese pearls.

Japan's pearl industry is actually the largest Chinese pearl importer in the world!

If you buy a 'Japanese' Akoya pearl strand, you are almost guaranteed to have some if not all Chinese Akoya's on your strand. For this reason, it is not accepted practice to have 'Japanese Akoya' labels on your jewellery. Instead opting for 'Made in Japan'. Many are still being deceived and paying much higher prices than they need to.

Japan still has the largest market share of Akoya's 8mm and larger due to the fact, China still hasn't worked out how to create equivalent quality large Akoya pearls in large quantities.

So what Akoyas do Twelve Pearls stock?

Twelve Pearls buy Akoya pearls from Japan & China depending on price & most of all, quality. If we have requests for high quality Akoya pearls over 8 mm or so, the pearls are almost definitely going to be Japanese for the reasons stated above.

Even though some of the pearls we buy from our suppliers are labelled 'Japanese' Akoyas, we have decided to not label them on our site either Chinese or Japanese as we cannot be certain of their origin. We believe this is good business practice and our customers deserve our honesty on what exactly they are paying for.

If you really desire Japanese Akoyas, let us know and we can source them for you. The cost will be higher than the pearls on our website, but your wish is our command!