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Can you imagine what the world would be like without desserts and without the delicate
aroma of vanilla?
Nearly a third of the world's ice cream lovers choose vanilla as their first choice.
Vanilla is everywhere - from ice cream to cakes, and even in perfumes.
Vanilla flavor - popular all over the world.
Natural vanilla prices have skyrocketed in recent years.
At one time it was even more expensive than silver by weight.
But the history of this beloved fragrance is nothing like vanilla.
How is it that this flavor has become the standard flavor for some of the world's most
popular desserts, while vanilla has become so expensive?
Nearly 80% of the world's vanilla is grown in the ideal climate -
northeastern Madagascar.
It is the main export crop of the country.
Also among the largest producers are Indonesia and China.
For farmers in Madagascar, life becomes much sweeter when the price of vanilla rises.
And it is constantly growing.
If in 2014 vanilla cost $80 per kilogram, three years later it had already risen to
$600.
Today the price has stabilized at around $500.
The rise in prices is partly due to global demand.
This natural food trend means food companies are avoiding synthetic flavors.
But the price can change very quickly.
Price fluctuations affect agricultural producers everywhere.
In just a few weeks, the price can rise or fall by more than 20%.
The thing is, it's just a tiny industry.
After all, one cyclone can completely destroy the entire crop in Madagascar, and growing
this crop is very difficult and delicate.
Vanilla is considered to be native to South America.
The Aztecs loved and appreciated it very much, added it to hot chocolate, and also used it
instead of money, since it was very much in demand and was very rare.
Ancient Mexicans, the Totonacs, first discovered that vanilla grows in the Mesoamerican regions
of what are now Mexico and Guatemala.
Throughout history, vanilla has been used for a variety of purposes, ranging from an
aphrodisiac to medicines to treat male impotence and snake bites.
It was a kind of universal medicine.
But once people tasted its intoxicating sweetness, they were hooked.
Today, at these prices, vanilla pods are the second most expensive spice in the world after
saffron.
And that's why 99% of the vanilla-flavored products that are consumed today are made
from artificially prepared vanillin, not orchid vanilla pods.
Vanilla planifolia orchids produce vanilla pods.
Vanilla is a plant that belongs to the orchid family.
This is a vine with pod fruits.
When fresh, vanilla pods are juicy green (at the beginning of growth) color.
Vanilla is one of the most demanding crops to grow.
But from a botanical point of view, the fruit of vanilla, like all orchids, is called a
“box” (unlike a real pod, it does not have a partition).
Vanilla may be familiar in the form of dry, thin pods 15 to 25 centimeters long, which
can be broken open to scrape out the tiny black seeds.
These vanilla beans are actually the dried fruit of the orchid from which the spice gets
its name: Vanilla planifolia.
Natural vanilla is used to flavor only the most expensive confectionery and sweet dishes,
in particular, chocolate and cocoa-containing products, biscuits and biscuit dough products,
as well as creams and ice creams.
Vanilla cultivation begins with seedlings.
Saplings are nursed for several months in the nursery.
Here, active preparations are underway for transplanting plants into the ground.
Vanilla is a climbing plant, therefore, first of all, they prepare posts for support and
soil.
For better plant growth, wood waste is added to the soil.
Preference is given to a mulch containing shredded coconut shells.
Over time, the waste will decompose and become nutrients for plants.
One farmer, for example, invented such special containers for growing vanilla.
He simply filled metal baskets with massive coconut shells.
He did this for a simple reason - orchids are an epiphyte, that is, a plant that grows
on the surface of another plant and receives moisture and nutrients from air, rain and
water.
Epiphytes differ from parasites in that they grow on other plants for physical support
and do not necessarily have a negative effect on the host.
In this case, the farmer wrapped the coconuts with organic wire, which will slowly rot and
provide the necessary minerals to the plant.
Vanilla roots permeate this structure and the plant becomes stronger and more resilient.
Finally, the workers start planting vines.
They are placed in a prepared hole in which a layer of humus is poured.
Liana is attached to the post.
Each vine will take 3-4 years for the plant to mature and bloom.
Orchids only bloom once a year for 24 hours or so, which means growers have to check every
single flower so they can hand-pollinate them with a wooden needle at the right time.
If one flower is missed, it will not bear fruit until the next growing season.
Vanilla flowers are hermaphrodites.
Depending on the variety, vanilla blooms with beautiful white, beige or pale yellowish flowers.
Flowers bloom early in the morning, and wither in the evening, and in order to avoid overheating
and dehydration, you need to have time to pollinate the plant between 6 and 11 am.
An experienced worker manages to process 1000-1500 flowers per day.
As a rule, women are engaged in pollination.
This is what artificial pollination looks like.
After that, the process of fetal formation begins.
It remains only to wait for the harvest.
For 6-9 months after pollination and before harvest, farmers must keep a vigilant eye
on their crops, sometimes choosing to sleep with their crops to prevent "vanilla thieves"
from stealing what is often their only source of income.
They cannot rely on the state.
To protect their crops, they have to take matters into their own hands.
Due to rampant theft, farmers often resort to picking the pods before they are ripe.
As a result, the quality of the resulting vanilla is significantly reduced.
Accordingly, the price and profit decrease.
This state of affairs leads to market instability.
Today, vanilla production does not cover world demand.
It's hard to tell by eye when vanilla beans are ready to be harvested, but small farmers
have developed a "sixth sense" that allows them to tell when vanilla beans are ready
to be picked from the vine.
The pods begin to acquire their characteristic vanilla aroma and taste only after they have
been processed and dried.
They then need to be quickly sorted and packaged before being sold to processing plants.
Successful pollination produces a 15-25 cm pod with thousands of tiny seeds inside it.
The pods take nine months to mature and must be harvested by hand.
They are harvested at the moment when they begin to turn yellow and contain approximately
80% water.
During this period of plant development, it contains the maximum amount of essential oils
that give it aroma and taste.
At the same time, the harvested fruits do not have their characteristic smell before
processing.
This flavor comes from a chemical compound called vanillin, which only comes out when
the fruit is boiled or roasted and then dried.
Harvesting is quite simple - the pods are simply cut from the plant.
It takes approximately 2.5 -3 kg to produce 500 grams of processed vanilla.
green pods.
The production technology of this spice is quite complicated.
At the first stage, unripe fruits are harvested, washed and immersed for 20 seconds in hot
water (80-85 ° C), thus carrying out a kind of short-term blanching.
Then the fruits are exposed to the sun in woolen towels to “sweat” so that the pod
stops ripening and begins to ferment.
Next, the pods are dried in the sun for two weeks.
For the next 30 days, the pods will be slowly dried indoors.
This is how fruit fermentation takes place.
Only after fermentation does vanilla acquire its characteristic aroma and brown color.
After that, the spice is dried in the shade in the open air for several months.
After the appearance of a white coating on the pods, it is considered that the spice
is ready for use.
The vanilla is then processed.
It is sorted and only after that the fruits will be ready for packaging and transportation
for sale.
The growing and processing process is so complex that only about 2,000 tons of vanilla beans
are harvested annually in the world.
The quality of vanilla depends on many factors, ranging from the botanical species of the
vine from which it is obtained, and ending with the conditions for fermentation and drying.
Therefore, in world practice, vanilla is divided into 8 varieties according to quality.
It was not easy for Europeans to grow vanilla.
When the Spanish brought vanilla to Europe at the turn of the 16th century, the plants
refused to adapt to new pollinators.
The plant took root, but the pods were not tied.
The problem was that in native Mexico, vanilla was pollinated by endemic melipon bees and
hummingbirds, which were not found in other countries.
Botanists were in a desperate situation.
It wasn't until 1841 that horticulturist Edmond Albius managed to manually pollinate a vanilla
plant on Réunion Island with a blade of grass and a flick of his thumb.
Albius was born into slavery and at that time he was only 12 years old.
He learned about botany from a plantation owner, Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont.
Albius began to study the vanilla plant and found its reproductive parts.
He carried the pollen grain on the stigma of the flower pistil.
By this time, Beaumont had been caring for his vanilla plant for 22 years.
And Albius' efforts bore fruit for the first time.
Beaumont immediately sent Albius to teach the other plantation workers the complex art.
For the next 50 years, vanilla fascinated Europeans.
Reunion Island has become a major exporter of vanilla, producing nearly 200 tons per
year.
But without the genius of this 12-year-old enslaved botanist, vanilla would likely have
remained a rare and exotic spice.
The technique of pollinating the Albius vanilla plant is still in use today.
But how did this magical plant go from being an aphrodisiac to flavoring everything from
cookies to soup?
Albius's efforts expanded the scope of these tasty fragrant pods, but using them as a condiment
was not his idea.
The American envoy to France, Thomas Jefferson, popularized vanilla as an ice cream condiment.
Today, a much cheaper synthetic vanillin has appeared - surprisingly, in Western supermarkets
it is found almost more often than natural, and it costs several times cheaper, although
it has a very remote resemblance to real vanilla extract.
And yet
in recent years
in the world, more and more people prefer to buy natural products, organic stores are
never empty, despite the prices.
And this means that real vanilla has every chance to
take its rightful place in the world of culinary, perfumery and cosmetology.
That's all.
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