(Drawing of the Vanilla plant from the Florentine Codex and description of its use and properties written in the Nahuati language)
Pollination is required to make the plants produce the fruit from which the vanilla spice is obtained. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially.
In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved child who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered that the plant could be hand-pollinated.
Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant. Noted French botanist and plant collector Jean Michel Claude Richard falsely claimed to have discovered the technique three or four years earlier. By the end of the 20th century, Albius was considered the true discoverer.
Edmond Albius (1829 – 9 August 1880) was a horticulturalist from Réunion. Born into slavery, Albius became an important figure in the cultivation of vanilla. At the age of 12, he invented a technique for pollinating vanilla orchids quickly and profitably. Albius’s technique revolutionized the cultivation of vanilla and made it possible to profitably grow vanilla beans away from their native Mexico.
Vanilla planifolia is a species of vanilla orchid. It is native to Mexico and Belize. It is one of the primary sources for vanilla flavouring, due to its high vanillin content.
Common names include flat-leaved vanilla, and West Indian vanilla (also used for the Pompona vanilla, V. pompona). Often, it is simply referred to as “the vanilla”. It was first scientifically named in 1808. With the species’ population in decline and its habitats being converted to other purposes, the IUCN has assessed Vanilla planifolia as Endangered.
Flowers are greenish-yellow, with a diameter of 5 cm (2 in). They last only a day, and must be pollinated manually, during the morning, if fruit is desired.
The plants are self-fertile, and pollination simply requires a transfer of the pollen from the anther to the stigma. If pollination does not occur, the flower is dropped the next day.
In the wild, there is less than 1% chance that the flowers will be pollinated, so in order to receive a steady flow of fruit, the flowers must be hand-pollinated when grown on farms.
Vanilla planifolia is a species of vanilla orchid. It is native to Mexico and Belize. It is one of the primary sources for vanilla flavouring, due to its high vanillin content.
Common names include flat-leaved vanilla, and West Indian vanilla (also used for the Pompona vanilla, V. pompona). Often, it is simply referred to as “the vanilla”. It was first scientifically named in 1808. With the species’ population in decline and its habitats being converted to other purposes, the IUCN has assessed Vanilla planifolia as Endangered.
Flowers are greenish-yellow, with a diameter of 5 cm (2 in). They last only a day, and must be pollinated manually, during the morning, if fruit is desired.
The plants are self-fertile, and pollination simply requires a transfer of the pollen from the anther to the stigma. If pollination does not occur, the flower is dropped the next day.
In the wild, there is less than 1% chance that the flowers will be pollinated, so in order to receive a steady flow of fruit, the flowers must be hand-pollinated when grown on farms.
Vanilla beans don’t come off the vine black and shiny as we know and love them.
They start out green, their tips yellowing as they ripen and loosen their grip on the mother plant.
At that moment of harvest, the vanilla bean begins a fraught and arduous four-month metamorphosis.
Few ingredients in the food world match this journey.
Before we start a warning. Nothing can cure an unripe bean. Like berries and many fruits, vanilla stops ripening the moment it is picked.
Natural ripening, a bean cannot become vanilla.
Ripening occurs when temperature and humidity changes trigger the bean’s enzymes to convert starches and pectin to sugars.
The pod’s cell walls soften.
Chlorophyll breaks down, and the fruit begins to yellow.
Interrupting this process arrests flavor development. Curing an unripe bean preserves only a sour and bitter fruit.
Once ripe, the four stages of curing can begin.
No more than three days after harvest, the beans are plunged into water heated to 150-170 degrees Fahrenheit from 10 seconds to three minutes.
Timing depends on the size of the beans, whether they have split on the vine, and water temperature.
Dipping is performed by a master curer who calculates these variables by feel.
This converts gluco vanillin to vanillin.
As soon as the beans are pulled from the water, they should rush to wrap them tightly in wool blankets, storing them inside a dark, airtight container. Speed is essential to preserve heat and steam.
These trigger the enzymes that convert cellulose and starches to vanillin and other complex components that give vanilla its beautifully subtle aroma.
The beans remain tightly wrapped for up to two weeks, during which it is imperative to keep them warm.
Any cooling can trigger mold, vanilla’s arch enemy. Because vanilla is cured during the rainy season, this presents a tricky problem.
Curers combat cooling by laying the rolls in the sun and returning them to their container when clouds and rain threaten.
Curers combat cooling by laying the rolls in the sun and returning them to their container when clouds and rain threaten.
As the beans reach more ideal moisture content, they will be left in the sun open to the air during the day and rolled up at night.
As soon as the beans are pulled from the water, they should rush to wrap them tightly in wool blankets, storing them inside a dark, airtight container. Speed is essential to preserve heat and steam.
These trigger the enzymes that convert cellulose and starches to vanillin and other complex components that give vanilla its beautifully subtle aroma.
The beans remain tightly wrapped for up to two weeks, during which it is imperative to keep them warm.
Any cooling can trigger mold, vanilla’s arch enemy. Because vanilla is cured during the rainy season, this presents a tricky problem.
Curers combat cooling by laying the rolls in the sun and returning them to their container when clouds and rain threaten.
Curers combat cooling by laying the rolls in the sun and returning them to their container when clouds and rain threaten.
As the beans reach more ideal moisture content, they will be left in the sun open to the air during the day and rolled up at night.
By now, the beans are exploding with aroma and flavor, and almost ready.
They are placed in closed boxes lined with wax paper and kept there for at least a month.
This preserves and enhances aroma. Beans are often shipped at this stage before conditioning is complete because this is the bean’s final form of storage.
The conditioned beans have developed full flavor, and look black and slick with a very light coating of natural oils.
Sometimes, when everything happens just right, the beans are clothed in delicate white vanillin crystals.
Vanilla curing is an art.
It demands an astute eye and years of experience to know when to move the vanilla beans from one stage to the next.
There is nothing like seeing a master curer in action!
You must love vanilla to get it right.
But the reward is like no other to lift the lid of a beautiful hand-packed box of vanilla beans that fills a room with its exotic, intoxicating scent.
Conditioning is performed by storing the pods for five to six months in closed boxes, where the fragrance develops.
The processed fruits are sorted, graded, bundled, and wrapped in paraffin paper and preserved for the development of desired bean qualities, especially flavor and aroma.
The cured vanilla fruits contain an average of 2.5% vanillin.
Once fully cured, the vanilla fruits are sorted by quality and graded.
Each country which produces vanilla has its own grading system and individual vendors, in turn, sometimes use their own criteria for describing the quality of the fruits they offer for sale.
In general, vanilla fruit grade is based on the length, appearance (color, sheen, presence of any splits, presence of blemishes), and moisture content of the fruit.
Whole, dark, plump and oily pods that are visually attractive, with no blemishes, and that have higher moisture content are graded most highly.
Such pods are particularly prized by chefs for their appearance and can be featured in gourmet dishes.
Beans that show localized signs of disease or other physical defects are cut to remove the blemishes; the shorter fragments left are called “cuts” and are assigned lower grades, as are fruits with lower moisture contents.
Lower-grade fruits tend to be favored for uses in which the appearance is not as important, such as in the production of vanilla flavoring extract and in the fragrance industry.
Length of pods – between 17-25cm Smell – Inherited vanilla smell
Color – Dark brown or black color Appearance – Shiny oily surface
Lack of insect attacks or other patches
Cleanness – Lack of extraneous matter, animal o plant parts or insects Moisture – around 25% – 30%
Though there are many compounds presents in the extracts of vanilla, Vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) is primarily responsible for the characteristic flavor and smell of vanilla. However, there are hundreds of minor compounds in vanilla extract. The main compound in vanilla oil is piperonal (heliotropin)
