Queen of Spices

The cultivation of the vanilla orchid, planted in the middle of the tropical forest, and the processing of its pods is elaborate. Thus the women farmers — pollination is purely women's work — are out every morning for three months to manually pollinate the flowers, which open one after another and only for a few hours each.

After pollination the seed pods develop, the up to 20cm long, still green "vanilla pods." Shortly before they split open they are harvested and then fermented and dried in an elaborate process. During this each pod is "massaged" by hand daily to promote the development of the aroma compound vanillin. At the end of all these processing steps are intensely flavored Bourbon vanilla pods of the highest quality.

Vanilla pods from Madagascar in the original bundle à 100g from gebana: to the shop