How vanilla grows, on a family farm in Bangkok

Where does vanilla come from?

Vanilla comes from the cured seed pods of Vanilla planifolia, a climbing orchid native to Mexico and Central America. It is the only orchid grown at scale as a food crop. Today it grows across the tropics, roughly within 20 degrees of the equator, and most of the world’s natural vanilla comes from Madagascar.

Outside its home range, vanilla has no insect that reliably pollinates it, so for a long time it barely produced pods anywhere else. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved boy on the island of Réunion, found a quick way to pollinate the flowers by hand. Growers around the world, including us, still use his method.

Our farm

Vanilor grows on a single family-owned plot inside Bangkok. It is small on purpose: every flower is handled by a person, so a farm this size can be looked after closely, one vine at a time.

Where

Bangkok, Thailand, about 13.7° N

Plot

528 m² (22 × 24 m), family-owned

Vines

1,000 at full planting, four to a pillar

Species

Vanilla planifolia

Growing conditions

24–32 °C, 75–85 % humidity, filtered light

Flowering

April to early June

Harvest

November to January

Curing

About six months, in a small curing room on the plot

Companion crops

Turmeric, lemongrass, cacao, black pepper

From cutting to cured bean

1. 1

   Prepare the ground

   Vanilla hates standing water. The plot is levelled over a drainage layer, and the growing mix (coir, bark, rice husk, compost and pumice) is made on site and left to mature for four to six weeks before anything is planted.

2. 2

   Plant cuttings from a mature vine

   Vanilla is grown from cuttings, not seeds. Ours are 60 to 100 cm long, taken from one mature mother vine and planted four to a pillar. Cuttings from a mature plant can flower after about 18 months; young nursery plants can take up to four years.

3. 3

   Train the vines

   Vanilla is a climbing orchid. Instead of letting it race upwards, the vines are led sideways along wires so the flowers will open at chest height. Any flowers in the first 18 months are pinched off so the vine builds strength first.

4. 4

   Let the dry season trigger flowering

   The vines need one to two months of mild dryness before they flower. Bangkok’s dry season, from December to February, does this on its own.

5. 5

   Pollinate every flower by hand

   Each flower opens for a single morning. With a thin bamboo stick, the pollinator lifts the small flap inside the flower that keeps its male and female parts apart, and presses them together. In season this takes four to six hours every morning. We keep six to eight pods per cluster so the vine is not overloaded.

6. 6

   Wait for the pods to ripen

   A pollinated flower becomes a green pod that takes about nine months to ripen. Pods are picked one by one, from November to January, when their tips start to turn yellow.

7. 7

   Cure the beans

   Fresh pods have almost no vanilla smell. The aroma develops during curing, which takes about six months and is explained below.

How vanilla beans are cured

A green vanilla pod smells of almost nothing. Curing is what turns it into vanilla: over about six months the pod darkens, dries and develops vanillin, the molecule behind most of its aroma. It takes about 4.5 to 5.5 kg of green pods to make 1 kg of cured beans.

The companion crops

Four other crops grow between the vanilla rows. Each one does a job on the farm, and each one is a character in the series.

• Turmeric (Khamin, the turmeric warrior): covers the shaded ground between the vines and keeps the soil from drying out.
• Lemongrass (Takrai, the lemongrass scout): lines the edges of the plot. Its roots hold the soil in place when the rains come.
• Cacao (Elder Koko, the cacao elder): likes the same shade and damp air as vanilla, so the two share the understorey.
• Black pepper (Prik, the black pepper trickster): another climbing vine. It grows up the same kind of support trees as the vanilla.

Meet the characters

Questions

Can vanilla grow in Thailand?

Yes. Vanilla is a tropical orchid that grows roughly within 20 degrees of the equator, and Bangkok sits at about 13.7° N. It needs heat, humidity, filtered light and a short dry spell to trigger flowering, which Bangkok’s December to February dry season provides.

How long does vanilla take to grow?

A vine grown from a cutting of a mature plant can flower after about 18 months; young nursery plants can take up to four years. After hand pollination, the pods take about nine months to ripen, and curing adds roughly six more months.

Why is vanilla so expensive?

Almost every step is done by hand. Each flower opens for one morning and has to be pollinated by hand, the pods take about nine months to ripen, and curing takes months more. It takes about 4.5 to 5.5 kg of green pods to make 1 kg of cured vanilla. Most of the world’s natural vanilla also comes from a single country, Madagascar, so a bad season there moves prices everywhere.

What is the difference between vanilla and vanillin?

Vanillin is the main aroma molecule in vanilla. Cured vanilla beans also contain many other aromatic compounds, which is why real vanilla tastes rounder. Most vanilla flavouring sold today uses vanillin made in a lab rather than taken from beans.