Why Have Most People Never Tried Real Vanilla?

Vanilla is the most popular spice. It is added to food and beverages, perfumes, cosmetics and care products. But what if we told you that these aren’t actually real vanilla? Well then, it turns out that this well-known flavor is just a hoax. To answer these questions, we suggest you delve a little into history and learn some surprising facts about vanilla.

Where does vanilla grow?

Vanilla is a “classic” spice that speaks not so much of its ubiquity as of its nobility. Even in English slang, vanilla means “ordinary.” However, we cannot say this about the history of vanilla.

It is obtained from the fruits of grapes belonging to the Orchidaceae family (yes, vanilla is a type of orchid). In ancient times, the Aztecs used vanilla beans as money and added them to cocoa. Since the mid-16th century, Europeans fell in love with this spice and tried to grow it at home, but the capricious plant did not take root anywhere. Even though the vanilla grew, it did not bear fruit. Therefore, for a long time, spices were imported from the New World (modern Mexico and Brazil).

Unfortunately, today vanilla almost never grows in its homeland, and here’s why. Today, the leaders in spice production are Madagascar (59% of the market), Indonesia (23%) and China (10%).

Why is real vanilla so expensive?

For a long time, vanilla was brought only from Mexico and Central America, and of course its cost was very high. It turned out that growing spices outside the homeland is very problematic. The reason for this is that vanilla flowers are pollinated by endemic melipona bees, which can only exist in these environmental conditions. Insects were specially bred by Mayan tribes. There are now significantly fewer bees due to climate change. That is why today there is almost no vanilla in its homeland.

Surprisingly, the method of pollination was not invented by an experienced breeder: only in 1841, a twelve-year-old black slave Edmond Albius from Reunion (an island in the Indian Ocean, a territory of France) found a way to pollinate by hand. vanilla. And although many contemporaries tried to dispute his discovery, the owner of the Bellier-Beaumont plantation, who was fond of botany, publicly confirmed that it was his servant who made it. Of course, he could have appropriated it and gone down in history, but for the sake of justice, he not only glorified the name of Albius, but also gave him freedom before the official abolition of slavery. It was probably then that he received the surname Albius, that is, white, in honor of his vanilla color.

The fact is that vanilla is hermaphrodite. The flower has a special part, the rostellum, that prevents self-pollination. Therefore, it could only be pollinated by the bees that climbed there. Edmond Albius suggested connecting the pistils and stamens by lifting the rostellum with a bamboo stick. And it worked. Thus Reunion became the main exporter of vanilla.

What are people willing to do for real vanilla?

We think the vanilla fight could be the subject of a separate movie. It is worth saying that vanilla blooms for only one day, and the vine itself bears fruit once every three years. Since it grows in poor countries, there is a real hunt for the spice: people are ready to shed blood for it. Poor people try to sneak into the fields as early as possible on harvest day to grab as many vanilla pods as possible and sell them on the black market. Owners are not ready to suffer losses and shoot thieves.

Today, vanilla is sold both as a pod and as a bean-based extract (vanilla in an ethanol solution in water). Due to the high cost of real vanilla, ways were found to chemically synthesize its taste. It is derived mainly from guaiacol or lignin (a component of wood). That’s why most people know the taste of vanilla. It is worth mentioning that aroma producers also enrich themselves well.