Vanilla

Vanilla is a spice that comes from orchids in the genus *Vanilla*, mostly from the seed pods of *Vanilla planifolia*, a species native to Mexico and Central America. Because the plant cannot pollinate itself, its flowers must be pollinated to produce pods. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this and devised a manual pollination method, but it was too costly for commercial use. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved child on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, found a way to hand-pollinate the plant. This technique made global vanilla cultivation possible. French botanist Jean Michel Claude Richard later falsely claimed to have discovered the method a few years earlier, but by the late 20th century, Albius was recognized as the true inventor. Three main vanilla species are now grown worldwide, all descending from a Mesoamerican ancestor: *V. planifolia* (also called *V. fragrans*), cultivated on Madagascar, Réunion, and other Indian Ocean tropics; *V. × tahitensis*, grown in the South Pacific; and *V. pompona*, found in the West Indies, Central America, and South America. Most of the world’s vanilla comes from *V. planifolia*, known as Bourbon vanilla (after Réunion’s former name, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, produced mainly in Madagascar, nearby Indian Ocean islands, and Indonesia. Together, Madagascar and Indonesia supply two-thirds of the global vanilla crop. By weight, vanilla is the second-most expensive spice after saffron, due to the labor-intensive growing process. Still, it is widely used in commercial and home baking, perfume making, and aromatherapy, since only small amounts are needed for its distinctive flavor and scent. Before domestication, *Vanilla planifolia* grew wild along the Gulf of Mexico from Tampico to northeastern South America, on the Pacific side from Colima to Ecuador, and across the Caribbean. The Totonac people, living on Mexico’s eastern coast in what is now Veracruz, were among the first to domesticate vanilla, farming it since at least 1185. They used it as temple fragrance, in good-luck amulets, and to flavor food and drink. Vanilla cultivation remained little known outside these regions. While the Totonacs are most famously linked to vanilla’s human use, the Olmecs, who lived in the same wild vanilla areas thousands of years earlier, may have been among the first to use it in cooking. In 1427, Aztecs from central Mexico invaded the Totonacs, acquired a taste for vanilla pods, and began flavoring foods and drinks with them, often mixing vanilla with cocoa in a beverage called *xocolatl*, which later inspired modern hot chocolate. The fruit was named *tlilxochitl*, often mistranslated as “black flower” rather than the more accurate “black pod,” because the ripe fruit shrivels and darkens soon after picking. For the Aztecs, as for earlier Mesoamerican peoples, vanilla likely tempered cacao’s bitterness, since sugarcane was not grown there and no other sweeteners were available. Hernán Cortés is credited with bringing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s. In Europe, vanilla was mainly used as a chocolate additive until the early 1600s, when Hugh Morgan, an apothecary in Queen Elizabeth I’s service, created chocolate-free vanilla-flavored sweets. By the 1700s, the French were using vanilla to flavor ice cream. Mexico was the leading vanilla producer until the mid-1800s, with Veracruz—especially the town of Papantla—as a top region. By 1889, Mexican vanilla exports exceeded 70,000 kilograms, making the area a world leader. However, as vanilla trade boomed in Papantla, many farmers who owned land where the crop grew faced political changes that forced them to pay rent. Protests against these policies led to conflict and deaths among a four-tier hierarchy of Totonac caciques, ranchero clans, landowning labradores, and a large class of tenants, laborers, and ranch hands. In 1819, French entrepreneurs shipped vanilla fruits to Réunion and Mauritius, hoping to grow vanilla there. After 1841, when Edmond Albius discovered quick hand-pollination, the pods thrived. Soon, tropical orchids were sent from Réunion to the Comoros Islands, Seychelles, and Madagascar, along with pollination instructions. By 1898, Madagascar, Réunion, and the Comoros produced 200 metric tons of vanilla beans, about 80% of world production that year. According to 2019 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization data, Madagascar and Indonesia were the largest vanilla producers in 2018. After a tropical cyclone damaged key croplands, vanilla prices surged in the late 1970s and stayed high into the early 1980s, despite the arrival of Indonesian vanilla. In the mid-1980s, the cartel that had controlled vanilla prices and distribution since 1930 dissolved. Prices dropped 70% over the next few years, to nearly US$20 per kilogram. Prices rose sharply again after Tropical Cyclone Hudah hit Madagascar in April 2000.