We Have Orchids to Thank for the World’s Most Popular Flavor and Scent

The most popular ice cream flavor, the most used cooking extract, the foundation of frosting. A widespread essential oil, deodorizer, and incense scent. Oh, vanilla, is there anything you can’t do?! The Orchid Corner is celebrating vanilla today (because cacao doesn’t come from orchids).

Most of us buy and use vanilla in extract form, but it’s also possible to purchase vanilla beans. They’re usually quite pricey—often about $10 per bean—and to get at the flavorful paste inside, the beans need to be cut lengthwise and then scraped. And that’s the easiest part of getting vanilla.

There exist some 110 vanilla orchids, but only 3 produce the beans we use for cooking. Two of those species, Vanilla Tahitensis and Vanilla Pompona, were hybridized from the first: Vanilla Planifolia.

Vanilla planifolia is native to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The Mayans harvested it first, and when the Aztecs conquered them, they began cultivating it. Legend has it that Aztec Emperor Montezuma served Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez a glass of cacao and vanilla, which Cortez loved and brought back to Europe, where its popularity spread. 

Vanilla planifolia orchid in the wild

Vanilla orchids are more finicky than phalaenopsis orchids. Full disclaimer: I don’t own one yet. I’ve been seriously tempted, and if I lived somewhere warmer, I’d already have one by now. Caring for vanilla orchids doesn’t seem too bad, but if you’re after home-grown vanilla beans, then be prepared for some labor.

The basic strategy for keeping orchids happy is to replicate their native environment as much as possible. For vanilla orchids, that means reproducing conditions of the central American rainforests, with high temperatures and humidity. Vanilla orchids like temperatures between 80-90 Fahrenheit during the day and ideal nighttime temperatures can dip into the 60s, but no lower. A noticeable difference between the daytime and nighttime temperatures helps induce flowering. Vanilla orchids are also sensitive to tap water and prefer rain or distilled water. The Orchid Resource Center has additional information to help with care. 

Vanilla planifolia flowers

The hard part happens after you get the orchid to flower. These orchids bloom once a year and each flower lasts only a few hours. During those few hours, one has to hand-pollinate these orchids—a delicate process that requires transferring pollen from one part of the plant to another using a chopstick, cotton swab, or toothpick (read more about hand-pollination here). 

6-9 months after successful pollination, the vanilla beans, which look more like green beans, are ready to harvest (picking them early makes them less flavorful). Then the curing process begins. 

Vanilla pods growing in the wild

The beans are cleaned and dunked in hot water for a couple minutes. Then they “sweat” in a covered wooden box for a few days until they start to smell like vanilla and turn brown. Then they go back and forth between being aired out in the sun and going back in the sweatbox in the evenings. This can go on for weeks or even months until the beans are ready for the drying phase, which consists of airing them out in the sun and/or shade until they’ve lost roughly 3/4ths of their moisture content. Finally, they’re “conditioned” in the box for about a month until they’ve reached vanilla perfection. There’s a great description of the process here. 

So that’s 3 or 4 years to produce and harvest a batch of vanilla beans. No wonder it’s the world’s most labor-intensive crop (and the second-priciest one—saffron’s got that one). Any orchid growers out there feel up to starting a side hustle?!