Imperial Jade vs Icy vs Apple Green: How to Tell Them Apart

Imperial jade is the finest green jadeite: an intense, pure green in fine-grained stone clear enough to glow from within. Icy and apple green are not lesser grades of the same thing. Apple green names a lighter, yellower green and icy names how clear the stone is, so a single piece of green jade jewelry can be icy and apple green at once.

The three names sit on two different scales. Imperial, yang and apple green are steps on a scale of color; glass, icy, waxy and bean type are steps on a scale of translucency and texture that the Chinese trade calls zhong; and imperial jade is the name for a stone at the top of both.

What is imperial jade?

Imperial jade is jadeite in which three qualities meet in one stone: a rich, saturated green, very fine grain and strong translucency. GIA describes the finest jadeite, almost transparent with a vibrant emerald-green color, as imperial jade, and allows that green to range from pure green to slightly bluish or slightly yellowish. When I sort rough, I hold imperial to a stricter line: a true green that leans neither yellow nor blue, with the color sitting deep in the body of the stone instead of floating at the surface. The best pieces are all green, with the color running evenly through the whole piece instead of pooling in one patch.

In Chinese the color is dìwáng lǜ, "emperor green," and like icy and apple green it is trade vocabulary. Imperial green names only the color; imperial jade names that color on fine, clear stone. A dark green stone that is cloudy isn't imperial jade, and neither is a clear stone with weak color. Imperial jade is still jadeite, as hard as any other jadeite at 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale.

Where does imperial jade come from?

Imperial jade comes mainly from the Hpakant area of Kachin State in northern Myanmar, the main source of top-grade jadeite, and our guide to jadeite and Burmese jade describes the six main pits one by one. Most of the imperial material I have seen came from deep, old rough at Old Hpakant and Mowanji. Huika produces imperial green too, though the trade says Huika's imperial green comes with cracks.

How rare is imperial jade?

Imperial jade is rare enough that most of what I have seen at private sales in Hpakant was small rough, big enough only for cabochons. Rough large enough to cut a full-color imperial plaque comes my way only a few times a year, and an imperial bangle needs a larger block still, with no cracks running through it. In my experience, much of what is sold online as imperial is something else.

Imperial, yang and apple green: how jadeite green is graded

Green jadeite is judged on how saturated the green is, which way it leans and how deep it sits, and the Chinese trade uses three names for the main steps from the top: imperial, yang and apple green. They are trade names rather than a formal grading system, and dealers draw the lines a little differently. GIA ranks color as jadeite's most important value factor, ahead of transparency and texture, so where a green falls on this scale moves the price more than anything else, though texture, size and form still decide what a particular piece is worth. When I sort green rough at Hpakant, I judge the color on its own and the texture separately, and the names sellers put on finished pieces don't come into it. These are the lines I draw:

• Imperial green (dìwáng lǜ): the fullest saturation, a true green that leans neither yellow nor blue, with the color deep in the stone. It stays green under a lamp instead of turning gray or dark; in the trade we say the green is heavy enough to weigh in your hand.
• Yang green (yáng lǜ): one step down, a bright, vivid green that may lean slightly blue or slightly yellow, lively without looking heavy. In my experience, much of the fine green jadeite on the market falls in this grade, and in English it is often sold as vibrant or bright green. Chinese buyers may also hear cuì lǜ, "kingfisher green," which describes a vivid true green rather than marking a separate grade.
• Apple green (pínggǒu lǜ) and the similar bean green (dòu lǜ): lighter and fresher, with an obvious yellow tint.

The scale is about value, not meaning. What green stands for in Chinese tradition and in crystal practice is covered in green jade meaning.

What is apple green jade?

Apple green jade is jadeite with a bright, fresh green that leans yellow, lively rather than deep. GIA lists apple jade, an intense yellowish green, among the prized jadeite colors; on the scale I use, apple green sits below imperial and yang green, lighter and less deep. The name covers color only: the material under it can be coarse and cloudy or fine and icy, and the finer and clearer it is, the more it is worth. Among our customers, lighter greens such as apple and bean green sell slightly better than deep greens, mostly to women choosing a piece to wear every day.

Apple green's trouble comes from the label it gets sold under. In my experience, it is the material most often relabeled as imperial and priced to match, so it suffers twice: sold dishonestly at the top end and undervalued at the honest end. I see the hedging in auction and dealer listings, where phrases like "borderline imperial green" get attached to apple green pieces. To me that wording says the piece isn't imperial, and it is not a term we use.

Icy vs glass-type jadeite: how translucency is graded

Icy jadeite is graded on translucency, not color. The Chinese trade judges translucency and texture together as zhong (种), a word for how fine and tight the crystal grain is, on a ladder that runs from glass type at the top through icy and waxy down to bean type, the same ladder used in our guide to the types of Chinese jade. Finer grain lets light travel further before it scatters, so each step up looks clearer. Icy jadeite, also sold as icy jade or ice jade (bīng zhǒng), reads like ice: a clear, watery depth with a soft inner glow. It can be colorless, the material sold as icy white jade, or carry color drifting through it, as icy green jadeite does.

Glass type (bōli zhǒng), sold as glass jadeite or glass jade, sits one grade above icy. It is clearer still, close to transparent, rarer, and often cut small, because glass-grade rough rarely comes in large sections free of cracks. A seller who calls a piece glass jadeite is making a higher and more specific claim than icy.

When I sort icy from glass type, I shine a light from the side and watch the body of the stone. In the cabochons I sort, icy material usually spreads the light out as it passes through, shows no glowing outline at the edge, and has a texture that is fine but hasn't yet turned gel-like. Glass type usually gathers the light, a bright glowing rim appears around the edge, almost no grain shows under the lamp, and the body looks clear and gel-smooth at once; the trade calls this qǐ yíng qǐ jiāo, "glow and gel." These are signs I look for, and none of them settles the grade on its own, because the dome of a cabochon, its polish and its thickness all change what you see. Most of the glass type I have seen came from old rough at Moxisha and Muna.

Thickness causes most of the confusion. Thin material passes light easily because there is less of it for light to cross, so a 2mm pendant slice can look glassy while the same material at bangle thickness looks cloudy. From what I see, that is the most common way icy listings mislead, along with pale, slightly cloudy material sold as icy simply because it has little color: absence of color is not translucency. So compare icy pieces only at similar thickness and under the same light, and ask the seller for the actual thickness; you can see icy material at ring thickness in our jade rings.

Our comparison of Guatemalan and Burmese jadeite sets the two origins side by side, and Guatemala has become a newer source of icy material: Gems & Gemology described Guatemalan "ice jade" in 2024 as nearly colorless and fine-grained.

What is water jadeite?

Water jadeite is a trade term for jadeite with good translucency: the Chinese trade calls translucency shuǐ, or "water," and a piece with good water looks clear and moist. Blue water jadeite (lán shuǐ) is clear, highly translucent jadeite with a light blue tint. Our guide to blue jade meaning explains how the blues differ, and in trade terms our own blue-green jadeite sits closer to qíng shuǐ than to blue water.

Can jade be translucent?

Jade can be translucent, but not all jade is. Most jadeite ranges from opaque to semitransparent, and GIA describes the best jadeite as semitransparent, meaning text read through it looks only slightly blurred; fully transparent jade is rare. Jadeite turns translucent when its tight network of grains lets light pass instead of scattering it, and the more translucent a piece is, the more it is worth. Nephrite, the other jade, ranges from translucent to opaque and is prized for a soft, oily glow rather than for translucency.

Plenty of real jade is opaque, including attractive green pieces, so a stone that lets no light through is not automatically fake. A stone that looks perfectly clear deserves a closer look, because Type B jadeite has been bleached and then impregnated with polymer or, less often, wax (not the thin surface wax used to finish jade), which can make it look brighter and clearer than it is, and only a lab test settles whether a piece has been treated. Bangles show translucency most honestly, because light has to cross the whole wall of a jade bangle bracelet rather than a thin edge.

Imperial, icy and apple green jade questions

Which is worth more, glass type or imperial green?

Glass type and imperial green sit on different scales, so neither is automatically worth more: glass type is the clearest grade of texture, and imperial green is the finest grade of color. Colorless glass-type jadeite is valuable in its own right, while an imperial-green color on coarse, cloudy stone is worth far less than its color suggests. Our jade price guide gives figures by grade. A stone at the top of both scales is imperial jade, and it is worth far more than one that reaches only one of them.

Is imperial jade expensive?

Imperial jade is among the most expensive gem material sold, for the reasons set out in why jade is so expensive. The auction record for jade jewelry, listed by Guinness World Records, is the Hutton-Mdivani necklace of 27 jadeite beads, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong in April 2014.

Is apple green jade valuable?

Good apple green jade is valuable jewelry, and at a fair price it is one of the better values in jade, because buyers have been taught to chase the imperial label instead. Type A apple green on fine, translucent stone can be worth more than a darker green on coarse material.

Does icy jadeite stay clear over time?

Icy jadeite with a fine, mature texture stays clear: in my experience, well-formed icy material looks essentially the same after decades of wear. What usually changes is the surface. The thin polishing wax wears down and a film of skin oil and lotion builds up, which can make a piece look a little duller until it is cleaned, as our guide to how to clean jade describes. Loosely structured, "young" icy material is the exception: after years of wear it can turn cloudier, a change the trade calls biàn zhǒng.

Is light imperial jade a real grade?

Light imperial jade is not a trade grade. Dealers buying and selling rough have no category called light or pale imperial; the phrase comes from retail and livestream selling. Material described that way is usually yang green or apple green, and it should be judged and priced as what it is.

Can nephrite be imperial jade?

Nephrite is not called imperial jade, because the term belongs to jadeite. Our nephrite jade guide covers how green nephrite is judged: it is valued for even color and a soft, oily luster more than for translucency.

Is imperial jade the same as emerald?

Imperial jade is not emerald. Imperial jade is jadeite, a rock made of interlocking crystals, while emerald is a single-crystal variety of the mineral beryl, and the two look alike only in color. Our jade vs emerald comparison sets them side by side; in hand, emerald is usually cut with facets that sparkle, while imperial jade is polished into smooth cabochons and carvings that glow.

What does icy jade mean?

Icy jade has no symbolic meaning of its own, because icy is a quality term for translucency, not a color. In Chinese tradition a jade's meaning comes mostly from its color and from what it is carved into, so colorless icy jadeite carries the meanings our guide to white jade meaning describes, such as purity and calm.

How to tell imperial, icy and apple green jade apart

Imperial, icy and apple green are easiest to tell apart in daylight, at full thickness and with the report in hand, because each name gets stretched in a predictable way. The table shows where each term sits and how it is most often misused:

Two photographs that screen most claims

Two photographs screen most imperial, icy and apple green claims before you go further. The first is the piece in ordinary daylight, outdoors or beside a window, with no lightbox, ring light or lamp behind it: some lighting, exposure and editing can exaggerate saturation and depth, and material that looks imperial in a product shot often looks like ordinary green in daylight. The second shows the piece edge-on, or a bangle with its wall thickness visible, so you judge translucency through the full body rather than the thinnest point. A short video of the piece turning in daylight adds more. None of these can confirm treatment, origin or a final grade.

What the certificate will and won't say

A standard identification report names the material and says whether it has been treated; it doesn't grade imperial, apple green, icy or glass type. The NGTC reports that come with our pieces identify natural jadeite and note only a basic color, such as green, in the remarks. A few laboratories go further on top material: SSEF reports quoted in Sotheby's catalogs have noted that a color "may also be called 'Imperial Green' in the trade," which is a description, not a grade. Our guide to what a lab certificate does and doesn't cover explains how to read one; whichever lab issued it, read the material name, any treatment note and the remarks on the report itself, not the seller's summary of it.

Why we don't sell imperial jade online

We don't sell imperial jade online because at that level a buyer needs to see the stone, and photographs can't carry enough of it. Color, texture and translucency all have to meet in an imperial piece; translucency is the one a camera conveys worst, and color reads differently under every light, so a bangle lit for the studio often looks more impressive than it does in daylight. At this level the standard is to see the stone: fine imperial pieces trade through auction houses and established dealers, where buyers inspect them in person, in daylight and with laboratory documentation, ideally with someone who knows jade beside them. Finding imperial rough is not the obstacle; I see it offered at the same Hpakant sales where I buy.

What we sell instead is apple green, icy, blue-green and white jadeite, plus Hetian nephrite, as bangles, rings, jade necklaces and jade hoop earrings: pieces we can show with daylight photographs, measurements and a certificate, and that you can return within 30 days if they don't match what you saw. If you ever see the word imperial on one of our product pages, we have made a mistake, and I would like to hear about it.

I'm Hong, and I have sorted green jadeite rough at Hpakant since 2016; the three greens and the side-light check in this guide are the ones I use when I buy. If you are weighing a green jadeite piece, send one daylight photograph and one at full thickness to jadeworldchina@outlook.com, and I'll tell you what I can see and what else to check. More about BMjade is on our About us page.

Sources

• Gemological Institute of America. "Jadeite Jade Quality Factors." GIA Gem Encyclopedia. Accessed October 2026.
• Hughes, Richard W., Olivier Galibert, George Bosshart, Fred Ward, Thet Oo, Mark Smith, Tay Thye Sun and George E. Harlow. "Burmese Jade: The Inscrutable Gem." Gems & Gemology, Spring 2000.
• Huang, Zhaoying, Tao Chen, Jinyu Zheng and Zebin Xu. "“Ice Jade” from Guatemala." Gems & Gemology, Spring 2024.
• American Museum of Natural History. "What Makes Jade Special: Translucency." OLogy. Accessed October 2026.
• Guinness World Records. "Most expensive jade jewellery sold at auction." Accessed October 2026.