Freshwater Pearls

Cultured freshwater pearls

Cultured freshwater pearls are pearls that are farmed and created using freshwater mussels. These pearls are produced in Japan and the United States on a limited scale, but are now almost exclusively produced in China. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires that farmed freshwater pearls be referred to as "freshwater cultured pearls" in commerce. The quality of cultured freshwater pearls is evaluated through a grading system of a series of A values, based on luster, shape, surface, colour, and matching.

Fresh water

Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters, such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen and meltwater in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snowfields and icebergs, natural precipitations such as rainfall, snowfall, hail/sleet and graupel, and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, as well as groundwater contained in aquifers, subterranean rivers and lakes.

Pearl

A pearl is a hard, shiny object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in a crystalline form, which is deposited in concentric layers. More commercially valuable pearls are perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The highest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. In literature, pearls have become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable, and valuable.

freshwater

Adjective

1. Living in fresh water.
2. Consisting of fresh water.

Noun

1. A body of fresh water.
2. Alternative form of fresh water.

pearls

Noun

1. plural of pearl.

Verb

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of pearl.