The whole and beaded cultured pearl has been with us since the 1920s and has formed the major part of the pearl market for several decades. The non-nucleated cultured pearl, produced in Lake Biwa in Japan, came to the market in the late 1950s and at the time caused some difficulties in terms of identification. In recent years freshwater cultured pearls, such as those from Lake Biwa, have been referred to simply as freshwater pearls. As natural freshwater pearls can be and are recovered from various rivers around the world, it is essential in the case of the freshwater cultured pearl to include such a qualifying term within any description. During the last decade an enormous number of freshwater cultured pearls have been brought onto the market by the Chinese. Mostly these have been the lower quality material which are said to resemble rice crispies. So many of these were brought to the market that the price per row became extremely low. Freshwater cultured pearls of a higher quality are now produced in addition to the very popular rice crispy type. The article describes a visit to a pearl farm located in Yangxin, China, and an arrangement of small man-made lakes, resembling a trout farm, that housed the various stages of mussel and pearl production. Questions regarding the production techniques were answered readily and a number of specimens of the mussel (<i>Cristaria plicata</i>) and the good and poorer quality cultured pearls were purchased for future investigation. Each mussel in a time span which may be as little as nine months produced 40 cultured pearls.