Vanilla

Plant Characteristics

Cultivation

Scientific Names

Read about Vanilla in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
Vanilla (Spanish, little sheath or pod). Orchidaceae. Vanilla. Climbing orchids whose branched stems ascend to a height of many feet, ornamental but known mostly as the source of vanilla used for flavoring and which is produced from the seed-pods. Nodes bearing lvs. or scales and aerial roots in alternate arrangement: fls. in axillary racemes or spikes, without an involucre at the top of the ovary; sepals and petals similar, spreading; labellum united with the column, the limb enveloping the upper portion of the latter; column not winged. — About 20 species in the tropics. The genus was monographed in 1896 by R. A. Rolfe in Journ. Linn. Soc., vol. 32. The most important species is V. planifolia, the vanilla of commerce. It is a native of Mexico, but is now widely cultivated in the West Indies, Java, Bourbon, Mauritius, and other islands of the tropics, its chief requirement being a hot damp climate. The plants are propagated by cuttings varying in length from 2 to about 12 feet, the longer ones being the more satisfactory. These are either planted in the ground or merely tied to a tree so that they are not in direct connection with the earth. They soon send out aerial roots, by which connection with the soil is established. They are usually trained on trees so that the stems are supported by the forked branches, but posts and trellises are also used as supports. In most places where vanilla-culture is practised, pollinating insects are lacking and the flowers must be pollinated by hand. Plants bear their first fruit about three years after setting. They then continue to fruit for thirty or forty years, bearing up to fifty pods annually. The vanilla pods are picked before they are ripe, and dried. The vanillin crystallizes on the outside. For a full description of vanilla culture and methods of curing the pods, see Bulletin No. 21, United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Botany, by S. J. Galbraith. Vanillin is also made from other sources by chemical means. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Vanilla pods

Vanilla is a flavouring derived from orchids in the genus Vanilla native to Mexico. The name came from the Spanish word "Template:Lang", meaning "little pod."^[1]

The Vanilla orchid

Main article: Vanilla (orchid)

The main species harvested for vanillin is Vanilla planifolia. Although it is native to Mexico, it is now widely grown throughout the tropics. Madagascar is the world's largest producer. Additional sources include Vanilla pompona and Vanilla tahitiensis (grown in Tahiti), although the vanillin content of these species is much less than Vanilla planifolia.

Vanilla is a vine; it grows by climbing over some existing tree, pole, or other support. It can be grown in a wood (on trees), in a plantation (on trees or poles), or in a "shader", in increasing orders of productivity. Left alone, it will grow as high as possible on the support, with few flowers. Every year, growers fold the higher parts of the plant downwards so that the plant stays at heights accessible by a standing human. This also greatly stimulates flowering.

Vanilla planifolia - flower.

The distinctively flavoured compounds are found in the fruit, which results from the pollination of the flower. One flower produces one fruit. Vanilla planifolia flowers are hermaphrodite: they carry both male (anther) and female (stigma) organs; however, to avoid self-pollenization, a membrane separates those organs. Such flowers may only be naturally pollinated by a specifically equipped bee found in Mexico. Growers have tried to bring this bee into other growing locales, to no avail. The only way to produce fruits is thus artificial pollination.

A simple and efficient artificial pollination method was introduced in 1841 by a 12 year-old slave named Edmond Albius on Réunion: a method still used today. Using a beveled sliver of bamboo,^[2] an agricultural worker folds back the membrane separating the anther and the stigma, then presses the anther on the stigma. The flower is then self-pollinated, and will produce a fruit. The vanilla flower lasts about one day, sometimes less, thus growers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers, a labour-intensive task.

The fruit (a seed pod), if left on the plant, will ripen and open at the end; it will then release the distinctive vanilla smell. The fruit contains tiny, flavourless seeds. In dishes prepared with whole natural vanilla, these seeds are recognizable as black specks.

Like other orchids' seeds, vanilla seed will not germinate without the presence of certain mycorrhizal fungi. Instead, growers reproduce the plant by cutting: they remove sections of the vine with six or more leaf nodes, a root opposite each leaf. The two lower leaves are removed, and this area is buried in loose soil at the base of a support. The remaining upper roots will cling to the support, and often grow down into the soil. Growth is rapid under good conditions.

History

Vanilla was one of the many items of cuisine first encountered by the Spanish upon meeting with the Aztecs, which they subsequently introduced into Europe. The Aztecs called vanilla tlilxóchitl ("black flower"), derived from the Nahuatl words tlilli ("black") and xóchitl ("flower"). This name, given in spite of the vanilla flower's white or pale yellow colour, indicates that their focus was on the colour of the coveted ripe pod, rather than the flower petals.

In ancient Mexico, the Totonac people were regarded as the producers of the best vanilla. The Totonac are from the region now known as the state of Veracruz (Papantla, Mexico, holds itself out as the origin of vanilla). They continued to be the world's chief producers of the flavouring through the mid 19th century. At that time, French vanilla growers in Mexico traded their knowledge of artificial pollination for the Totonac knowledge of preparing the pods.

The Coca-Cola Corporation is the world's largest customer of natural vanilla extract. When New Coke was introduced in 1985, the economy of Madagascar crashed, recovering only after New Coke failed. The reason was that New Coke used vanillin, a less expensive synthetic substitute. Purchases of vanilla more than halved during this period.Template:Fact

The market price of vanilla rose dramatically in the late 1970s, due to a typhoon. Prices stayed stable at this level through the early 1980s, due to the pressure of recently introduced Indonesian vanilla. In the mid 1980s, the cartel that had controlled vanilla prices and distribution since its creation in 1930 disbanded. Prices dropped 70% over the next few years, to nearly $20 USD per kilo. This changed, due to typhoon Huddah, which struck early in the year 2000. The typhoon, political instability, and poor weather in the third year drove vanilla prices to an astonishing $500 USD per kilo in 2004. A good crop, coupled with decreased demand, have pushed the market price down to the $40 per kilo range in the middle of 2005.

Chemistry

Chemical structure of vanillin

Main article: Vanillin

Though there are many compounds present in the extracts of vanilla, the compound vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) is primarily responsible for the characteristic flavour and smell of vanilla. Another minor component of vanilla essential oil is piperonal (heliotropin). Piperonal and other substances affect the odour of natural vanilla.

Vanilla essence comes in two forms. Real seedpod extract is an extremely complicated mixture of several hundred different compounds. Synthetic essence, consisting basically of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol, is derived from phenol and is of high purity.^[3]

Stages of production

A vanilla plantation in a wood on Réunion Island

Harvest
The pods are harvested while green and immature. At this stage, they are odourless.
Killing
The vegetative tissue of the vanilla pod is killed to prevent further growing. The method of killing varies, but may be accomplished by sun killing, oven killing, hot water killing, killing by scratching, or killing by freezing.
Sweating
The pods are held for 7 to 10 days under hot (45º-65ºC) and humid conditions; pods are often placed into fabric covered boxes immediately after boiling. This allows enzymes to process the compounds in the pods into vanillin and other compounds important to the final vanilla flavour.
Drying
To prevent rotting and to lock the aroma in the pods, the pods are dried. Often, pods are laid out in the sun during the mornings and returned to their boxes in the afternoons. When 25-30% of the pods' weight is moisture (as opposed to the 60-70% they began drying with) they have completed the curing process and will exhibit their fullest aromatic qualities.
Grading
Once fully cured, the vanilla is sorted by quality and graded.

Uses

2005 Top Vanilla Producers
Country	Production (tonnes)	%
Template:MAD	6,200	59%
Template:IDN	2,399	23%
Template:CHN	1,000	10%
Template:MEX	189
Template:TUR	170
{{CO M}} \|\| align="right" \| 140 \|\|
Template:TGA	130
Template:BEL	100
Template:UGA	70
Template:PYF	50
Template:REU	35
Template:MWI	20
Template:ZIM	10
Template:POR	10
Template:KEN	8
Template:GLP	8
Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organization [5]

There are three main commercial preparations of natural vanilla:

whole pod
powder (ground pods, kept pure or blended with sugar, starch or other ingredients)^[4]
extract (in alcoholic solution)^[5]

Vanilla flavouring in food may be achieved by adding vanilla extract or by cooking vanilla pods in the liquid preparation. A stronger aroma may be attained if the pods are split in two, exposing more of the pod's surface area to the liquid. In this case, the pods' seeds are mixed into the preparation. Natural vanilla gives a brown or yellow colour to preparations, depending on the concentration.

Vanilla output in 2005

Good quality vanilla has a strong aromatic flavour, but food with small amounts of low quality vanilla or artificial vanilla-like flavourings are far more common, since true vanilla is much more expensive.

A major use of vanilla is in flavouring ice cream. The most common flavour of ice cream is vanilla, and thus most people consider it to be the "default" flavour. By analogy, the term "vanilla" is used as a synonym for "plain".

The cosmetics industry uses vanilla to make perfume.

In old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers. These purported uses have never been scientifically proven, but it has been shown that vanilla does increase levels of catecholamines (including epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline), and as such can also be considered mildly addictive.^[6]^[7]

The essential oils of vanilla and vanillin are sometimes used in aromatherapy.

The food industry uses methyl and ethyl vanillin. Ethyl vanillin is more expensive, but has a stronger note. Cook's Illustrated ran several taste tests pitting vanilla against vanillin in baked goods and other applications, and to the consternation of the magazine editors, all tasters preferred the flavour of vanillin to vanilla.

Specific types of vanilla

Bourbon vanilla or Bourbon-Madagascar vanilla, produced from Vanilla planifolia plants introduced from the Americas, is the term used for vanilla from Indian Ocean islands such as Madagascar, the Comoros, and Réunion, formerly the Île Bourbon.

Mexican vanilla, made from the native Vanilla planifolia, is produced in much less quantity and marketed as the vanilla from the land of its origin. Vanilla sold in tourist markets around Mexico is sometimes not actual vanilla extract, but is mixed with an extract of the tonka bean, which contains coumarin. Tonka bean extract smells and tastes like vanilla, but coumarin has been shown to cause liver damage in lab animals and is banned in the US by the Food and Drug Administration.[http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/o ra_import_ia2807.html]

Tahitian vanilla is the name for vanilla from French Polynesia, made with Vanilla tahitiensis.

The term French vanilla is not a type of vanilla, but is often used to designate preparations that have a strong vanilla aroma, and contain vanilla grains. The name originates from the French style of making ice cream custard base with vanilla pods, cream, and egg yolks.

French vanilla is commonly misrepresented in coffee shops as a flavour of syrup, however it is not possible to recreate a true French vanilla flavour in coffee. Therefore flavours that are referred to as "French Vanilla" in cafes do not create a French vanilla flavour in any form, although this is a wide-reaching misconception in certain cafe cultures. Barnie's Coffee & Tea Company creates their "French vanilla" by combining vanilla and praline flavours, whereas Starbucks Coffee Company does not currently offer "french vanilla" flavour.