In May 2025, Yen’s Jewelry joined the Pearl Association of America on a study trip to Shanxiahu, in Zhuji, China, the world’s largest freshwater pearl center. We were invited by GUILD Gem Laboratory and timed the visit with the 5th Shanxiahu World Pearl Conference (SWPC). Here is what we saw, from the trading floor to the mussel farms.
01The market
Shanxiahu: the world’s freshwater pearl capital
Huadong International Jewelry City, in the small town of Shanxiahu, is where most of the world’s freshwater pearls are bought and sold. It is more than a market: farming, processing, quality control, design and global shipping all happen within a few miles.
- 160,000 m²of market space
- 2,400+retail and wholesale booths
- 73%of the world’s freshwater pearls come from here
- 60+countries it exports to
Selling has moved online fast. More than 5,000 livestreaming accounts sell pearls on Douyin, Taobao Live and TikTok Shop, and over 150,000 packages ship out of Shanxiahu on a typical day. Many products carry a “one product, one code” tag that traces each item back through the supply chain.
Pearls are the town’s economy: with fewer than 30,000 residents, the industry employs more than 28,000 people locally. The town has also cut its farming area nearly in half, from 8,000 to 4,200 mu (about 1,320 to 690 acres), to protect water quality.
02Farming
Eco-farming: cleaner water and smarter pearl farms
We visited Zhejiang Qinghu Holding Group, a Shanxiahu company founded in 2016 that pairs freshwater pearl farming with river and pond restoration. Its approach uses living systems to clean water: eco-friendly dredging, microbes that break down pollutants, and carefully chosen fish, shrimp, shellfish and algae.
- Clearer water: in some rivers, visibility rose from under 15 cm to over 50 cm, and nitrogen and phosphorus levels fell sharply.
- Automated feeding: a networked system delivers feed to each pearl mussel on a schedule, cutting labor and making vertical farming possible.
- A color gene bank: Qinghu is building what it calls China’s largest freshwater pearl color gene bank, to breed better natural color and rely less on treatment after harvest.
- Beyond pearls: projects include a reclaimed mining area in Shandong and solar panels over aquaculture ponds in Hubei.
Qinghu’s ecological water treatment and pearl farming
Smart pearl farming at Qinghu’s Shanxiahu base
Linking ecology, industry and community
03Technology
AI that sorts and drills pearls
Sorting: nine grades, 432,000 pearls a day
Grading pearls by hand is slow and depends on each sorter’s eye. Unveiled at the 2024 conference, an AI sorting machine grades pearls on luster, roundness, size and surface into nine grades, and can process up to 432,000 pearls a day. Operators say it stays consistent from the first pearl to the last, without the eye strain that slows human graders, which frees skilled staff for higher-value work.
Drilling: 2 mm to 15 mm, in seconds
An AI drilling machine with robotic arms picks up each pre-sorted pearl, from 2 mm to 15 mm, and drills a full hole in seconds. The result is cleaner, more consistent holes, with less risk of breakage or misalignment.
AI pearl drilling machine
04The conference
The 5th Shanxiahu World Pearl Conference
The conference opened on May 20, 2025, under the theme “‘Zhu’ Shines on the World” (zhu, 珠, means pearl). It brought together producers, global buyers and officials. Shanxiahu accounts for about 80% of China’s pearl trade and 70% of the world’s, with a regional pearl economy of more than 50 billion yuan a year.
- High-speed rail: a new line with a Shanxiahu stop is planned to start construction in late 2025 and finish around 2028, making the town far easier to reach for buyers.
- Cross-border selling: over 500 accounts now sell Shanxiahu pearls on Amazon, TikTok and AliExpress. A new bonded trading center cut customs clearance times by 60%.
- Automation and tracing: machines now handle sorting and drilling, AI speeds up jewelry design and marketing, and NFC chips let buyers check a pearl’s origin with a tap.
- Testing and research: 13 national gem-testing labs issue more than 70,000 reports a day, and over 600 experts work across five research hubs.
- Pearls and tourism: visitors can open mussels, design custom jewelry and tour pearl-themed villages.
Opening of the 5th Shanxiahu World Pearl Conference
05The forum
GUILD Aurora Brilliance Awards and global pearl forum
Also on May 20, the Global Pearl Industry Outlook Forum and the 4th Aurora Brilliance International Jewelry Awards were held at the Shanxiahu Pearl Museum, co-hosted by the Zhejiang Pearl Industry Association, GUILD Gem Laboratory and GUILD Gem Education.
What the panel said about the market
- Jeremy Shepherd (Pearl Association of America): U.S. buyers are moving to online and livestream shopping. Akoya is still seen as the most luxurious pearl, but Chinese freshwater sells the most, thanks to price, natural color range and thick nacre.
- David Troth (David Harry Jewelry): Western demand for naturally colored pearls is growing, and designers and younger customers love freshwater’s soft natural pastels.
- Pierre Fallourd (TSVG): China is driving pearl innovation in grading, sustainable farming and packaging, and deserves wider recognition for it.
- Martin Bell (jewelry producer): more buyers want full-nacre pearls, and Chinese freshwater pearls carry a strong story; accessible design and ethical sourcing matter.
- Paula Crevoshay (designer): pearls as a medium for artistic, high-end jewelry and self-expression.
The panel agreed that storytelling, transparency, clear origin and sustainable practices will drive the industry’s growth. The evening closed with the Aurora Brilliance Awards, which drew more than 6.8 million online votes.
06On the farm
Edison pearl farming up close
Edison pearls were developed in China in the early 2000s and reached the market around 2010. Unlike traditional freshwater pearls, they are grown around a shell bead plus donor tissue, like saltwater pearls. The result: large, round pearls with high luster and vivid color, developed through research institutes working with leading farms in Zhuji.
New mussel lines for whiter and more colorful pearls
Young mussels, about four months old. From the outside you can’t tell the bred lines apart: they all have green shells with growth rings.
Bred as tissue donors for white, high-luster pearls. A pearl’s color comes from the donor’s mantle tissue, not from the mother-of-pearl of the shell it grows in.
Bred as tissue donors for deep purple and lavender pearls.
Young mussels from selectively bred donor lines at a Shanxiahu farm. Tap a tab to compare.
Shanxiahu farms use the triangle-sail mussel (Hyriopsis cumingii) and the Biwa mussel (Hyriopsis schlegelii). Farmers have now bred consistent lines of mussels with white inner shells to use as tissue donors, plus deep purple lines, which shape the pearls’ color and luster.
- Small rounds first: perfectly round small sizes were mastered by late 2023; the focus has now moved to 6–10 mm.
- Younger mussels: spat become baby mussels in about a month and reach the four-month stage pictured above. Farmers used to graft after a year, but find mussels at 7 to 8 months are at their most vigorous.
- Younger donor tissue from these bred lines gives better color and luster.
Edison pearls from a new hybrid mussel with a super-white inner shell
Reading a mussel
Watch the farmer read a mussel’s growth rings, open it and show where it is grafted, with an English voice-over.
Reading and opening a freshwater pearl mussel, Shanxiahu, May 2025
1 mo1 yr2 yrs3 yrs4 yrsThe outer edge is this year’s growth. This mussel is four years old, too old to be a tissue donor.
A shell is a growth timeline. From the hinge down, the red marks show about 1 month, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and 4 years of growth. Farmers read these lines to choose the right age for grafting and harvest. Slide to step through it.
Harvest day
Nothing goes to waste. Once the pearls are out, the shells are repurposed: the nacre is cut into mother-of-pearl beads, inlay and decorations, and the rest is crushed for building materials and other uses.
Why the best Edison pearls take years
Edison pearls are often grown for 3 to 4 years in healthy mussels. That time builds thicker nacre and, just as important, more stable natural color. The farmers we met said that pearls harvested too early, especially from young mussels, are more likely to fade, above all in purple, lavender, pink and metallic tones.
Fine Edison pearls need little more than a rinse in clean water and a gentle polish. Heat treatments such as maeshori and optical brightening agents (OBAs) can boost the look for a while, but risk weakening the nacre and stripping the natural pigments, especially in colored Edisons.
Rinsing freshly harvested Edison pearls
Freshly harvested Edison pearls
What this means for buyers
- Ask for natural color. Long-grown pearls hold their color; ask how long a strand was grown and whether it was treated.
- Round small whites are here. Bred white-shelled lines now produce consistent round freshwater pearls, with 6–10 mm the next frontier.
- Grading is getting more consistent. AI sorting into nine grades means more even strands, though baroques still need a human eye.
- Traceability is real. Codes and NFC chips let buyers check origin, and buyers increasingly expect it.
Frequently asked questions
Shanxiahu (山下湖) is a town in Zhuji, Zhejiang Province, China. Its Huadong International Jewelry City is the world's largest freshwater pearl market, and about 73% of the world's freshwater pearls come from the area.
The Shanxiahu World Pearl Conference (SWPC) is an industry event held in Zhuji that brings together pearl producers, global buyers and officials. The 5th conference opened on May 20, 2025.
Edison pearls grown for 3 to 4 years build thicker nacre and more stable natural color. Pearls harvested early, especially from young mussels, are more likely to fade, particularly in purple, lavender, pink and metallic tones.
Fine Edison pearls usually need only a rinse and a gentle polish. Heat treatments such as maeshori and optical brightening agents can boost the look for a while but risk weakening the nacre and stripping natural color.
Aerial and awards photos: GUILD Gem Laboratory. All other photos and videos: Yen’s Jewelry. Market and conference figures as reported at the 2025 SWPC.