Rhône-Poulenc, now Solvay, commercialized a pure petrochemical route in the 1970s. Vanillin, the main flavor component of cured vanilla beans, was synthesized variously from pine bark, clove oil, rice bran, and lignin. In the 1800s and 1900s, chemists took over from botanists to expand supply of the flavor. It didn’t take long for vanilla demand to exceed supply from the farms of Madagascar. There, locals continue to pollinate orchids by hand and cure the beans in the traditional fashion. Today, about 80% of the world’s natural vanilla comes from smallholder farms in Madagascar. In Réunion, output of vanilla soared thanks to the Albius method, and orchid cultivation expanded to nearby Madagascar. It was there that the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés famously witnessed the Aztec Emperor Montezuma drinking a chocolate beverage flavored with vanilla. Until Albius’s discovery, vanilla had been successfully cultivated only in its native southeastern Mexico, home of its pollinator, the Melipona bee. That changed in 1841 thanks to a 12-year-old boy wielding a tiny stick.Įdmond Albius was an enslaved worker in the French colony of Réunion who, after close inspection of the vanilla orchid Vanilla planifolia, figured out how to hand-pollinate its flower to produce vanilla beans.Īlbius used the stick to push up a flap in the orchid flower called the rostellum and press the pollen-coated anther against the female part, or stigma. Today, vanilla is so well-known that its very name means “common.” But for centuries, vanilla was a rare, New World flavor enjoyed mainly by European elites.

What does it mean to be vanilla