Vanilla Beans

Vanilla Beans, Mexican

When you can get good Mexican vanilla beans, they have the best strong, spicy flavor of all the vanilla beans. Unfortunately, the crops in Mexico seem to be all over the place in the last twenty years.

For many years we received only smaller, inferior vanilla beans. The recent huge price hikes in the vanilla world seem to have spurred interest accross the globe in jumping into the market. Mexico has always had the reputation for the best vanilla, but it is much more difficult and expensive to produce the highest quality vanilla crops. Whether the newcomers to the scene will honor the age old Mexican reverance to quality or go for the fast buck remains to be seen. The last several years have been meager, yet this current batch of vanilla beans we have from Mexico is one of the best we have ever seen.

Vanilla is native to the Latin American ithsmus, where it has been culitvated and used as both flavoring and currency for centuries. Although vanilla beans are grown in several locations today, until the 1800’s Mexico maintained a monopoly on vanilla beans in spite of the fact that explorers constantly uprooted the orchid vines to replant in their native lands. Botanists finally came to realize that the melipone bees, native only to Mexico, were pollinating the flowers. Eventually, a man on the island of Reunion discovered that the pointed stick of a bamboo shoot could be used to hand-pollinate the flowers. Once this was discovered, the French planted vanilla on many of the tropical islands they ruled. To this day, former French colonies within about 25 degrees of the equator (which enjoy warm, tropical climates) produce about 80% of the world’s vanilla.

Closely Related Products

• Vanilla Beans, Madagascar "Bourbon Islands"
• Vanilla Beans, Tahitian "Gold"
• Vanilla Bean Paste, Madagascar Bourbon Island Vanilla Bean Paste

Cuisines and Categories

• Baking Spices, Mexican, Vanilla Beans

Recipes with this Spice