Have you ever wondered where those delicious fragrant Vanilla beans come from?
There are many challenges in the process of getting real Vanilla beans to you. These challenges include plant diseases, natural disasters, thieves and climate change, that will affect the crop growth and the farmers' future.
Let us give you an idea on how our farmers prepare it.
Vanilla is the seed pod of an orchid — the only orchid grown for food. A longitudinal section shows the flower's parts: the sepals and petals, the modified lower petal (labellum), the anther holding pollen, the stigma, the column (gynandrium), and the ovary that grows into the bean as the ovules ripen into the seeds inside.
The vanilla plant is propagated by cutting a 1.5-meter section, which then needs to be attached to a living support.
This is a glimpse of our vanilla farm.
This is how we pollinate the flowers by hand.
The green beans appear just a few days after hand pollination.
The harvest of mature beans begins approximately 8 months after pollination, spanning from June to September. Mature beans typically have a yellow color at the bottom tip and two white cords along each edge.
Once the beans are harvested, we initiate the “échaudage,” boiling them in water at 60 to 70 degrees for 7 minutes, followed by placing them in a hot cage to warm up for 24 hours. This stage is referred to as “étuvage.”
This is the “étuvage” process.
After the “étuvage” process, the beans need to be sun-dried for about 3 weeks, for approximately 3 to 5 hours each day. The duration of sun exposure is gradually increased over this period.
After three weeks in the sun, the pods turn the deep mahogany you recognise — glossy, supple, heavy with oil.
After sun drying, the vanilla beans enter the final stage known as “séchage à l'ombre,” typically conducted inside the house for about one week. Following this, we proceed to measure the length of each bean, and the process is complete.