Sweet as
vanilla
a familiar smell to everyone
Vanilla is a wild orchid, native to Mexico. Its beans have been used for more than 2,000 years by the Mayans and Aztecs to flavor and sweeten their cacao beverages. Then, in the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors discovered this drink of the gods and the elite, and brought it back to Europe. From that moment on, the Europeans tried many times to introduce vanilla vines back home, but for a long time, their attempts were met with failure. The plants would take and blossom, but nobody managed to produce any of those famous vanilla beans. In 1841, 22 years after the vanilla orchid was introduced to Bourbon Island (now known as Reunion Island), young slave Edmond Albius discovered a technique to pollinate the flower by hand. He managed to identify which was the flower’s male organ and pollinate it using a small splinter of wood. A few days later, the flower transformed into a vanilla bean…
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