8–10 kg into 1 kg
Fresh green pods slowly shrink into cured black vanilla—concentrating their essential oils and aromatic compounds over months of careful drying.
THE BOTANICAL JOURNEY
From a flower that blooms for a single day.
“Every pod in your hand exists because a farmer met a single blossom on the only morning it ever opened.”
A Climbing Orchid Touched by Human Hands
Vanilla is a climbing orchid. Its pale green-yellow flower blooms for only about a single day, and outside its native homeland in Mexico—where indigenous Melipona bees naturally visit the vine—its pollen must almost always be transferred by human hands.
The Gesture of Edmond Albius
In 1841, Edmond Albius, an enslaved teenager on the island of Réunion, discovered how to hand-pollinate the vanilla flower using a tiny wooden needle and a gentle press of the thumb. Nearly two centuries later, farmers still practice that exact technique today, flower by flower, morning after morning.
Smoky Warmth & High Vanillin from Java
Across Indonesia, vanilla gardens stretch from Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, and Bali all the way to Java and Papua. Javanese vanilla is renowned for its subtly smoky character and remarkably high natural vanillin content. That is the harvest we wish to introduce to you.
