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Even so, it was an effort to keep my hand steady as I reached out to take the slender central petal. The little flower was just one of a hundred blooming that morning and it would scarcely matter if I failed. In a small plantation on the edge of Hurepiti Bay (French Polynesia), I pollinated my first vanilla orchid. He also gives an impression of the complex build of the flower of the vanilla orchid: Tim Ecott, the author of Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Luscious Substance has traveled the world to see the main locales where the plant is grown and describes the labor-intensive process of hand pollination. Today, real vanilla mostly comes from Madagascar, but it’s also grown in South China, Indonesia, Uganda, Brazil, and a number of other islands and places like Tahiti. There, vanilla often grows on orange trees or near coffee bushes.

The irony is that artificial pollination is now common even in Mexico, because it yields more beans. Mexico lost its monopoly on vanilla production in 1846. Reunion in the Indian Ocean (back then called “Bourbon,” hence the term for vanilla) soon produced its own vanilla. From that turning point, it was possible to grow orchids in other parts of the world where the natural pollinators didn’t exist.

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It was only around 1836 that botanists figured out how to do it artificially: via hand pollination. Back then, how pollination took place still presented a big enigma. For about 100 years, from the second half of the 18th century on, the Totonac of the Papantla region in the state of Veracruz were the only vanilla exporters in the world.

It is native to south-eastern Mesoamerica, though, where the plant used to be pollinated by hummingbirds and native bees. What adds to the mystery of vanilla is that it’s often associated with dreamy, tropical places in the Indian Ocean like Réunion, Madagascar, and Mauritius. It counts as the second most expensive spice in the world after saffron. Remember the slim, dark sticks or pods in long glasses that don’t look so much like “beans,” but are nevertheless called this? Or the little black seeds in ice cream or baked goods? Nowadays, natural vanilla is mostly sold as a concentrate because it’s much easier to use that way. Contrary to common opinion, it isn’t yellow in color: it’s simply because ice cream or cake that contains vanilla often contains egg yolk or a colorant like carotene. There is a misconception about fermented vanilla. This is not just a scientific issue, but essential to know in order to create conservation guidelines for some of the genus’s endangered species. Many questions remain as far as the exact reproductive biology of the vanilla species is concerned. Its fleshy, fragrant flowers sport a mix of yellow and green. In fact, it’s the only orchid that contributes to human nutrition.

Vanilla planifolia, the most commonly grown species, is a creeping plant and part of the large orchid family. He didn’t tell my why women love it, too, though. “Men love vanilla, which is why whores the world over smell like it,” he told me recently. Curiously, Chandler Burr, one of the world’s most renowned cologne critics, sees vanilla eternally associated with the oldest profession. Vanilla used to be extolled for its alleged aphrodisiac properties. It makes most mouths water, which explains why it is also used as a supplement for fodder. It is an open secret that Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola buy the naturally produced substance in large amounts.īut vanilla flavoring is also where you may not expect it - such as in cough and cold preparations or pet food, where the cheaper, artificially produced substance helps to mask undesirable tastes. It can be found in more obvious places like ice cream, cakes, liqueurs, perfumes, tobaccos, and soaps. Did Montezuma II, the legendary king of the Aztecs, really imbibe 50 cups of a special thick chocolate-vanilla-honey potion every day? We will never know, but we know for sure that vanilla flavoring in any of its many forms is one of the substances that people just cannot get enough of.