Nothing equals the complex aroma and dark, robust flavor of vanilla!
This exquisite gift from nature can be used to flavor endless culinary creations, and its rich, pleasing scent can calm the nerves as well as excite the senses. Our raw, organic vanilla beans are hand harvested and sun cured to provide unsurpassed quality.
Vanilla is used to:
- Flavor foods, beverages, and medicines
- Scent perfumes and other body care and household products
- Promote sexual arousal
- Decrease anxiety
- Reduce nausea
Use it in your favorite recipes, blended creations, and beverages to impart a delicious flavor and wonderful aroma.
Vanilla beans are native to tropical areas of the Americas, and they have been cultivated for both their flavor and their healing properties since MesoAmerican times. The Totonaca people of the Gulf Coast of Mexico probably the first to cultivate vanilla continue to revere it as a sacred plant given to them by the gods. The Mayans, and later the Aztecs, used vanilla as an essential ingredient in their famous chocolate drink, Chocolatl, and it is still used to flavor many chocolates.
There are many species of vanilla thriving around the world; about 110 species have been catalogued since the discovery of vanilla. The plant that produces the vanilla bean is an orchid. The family to which the species belongs is Orchidaceae, one of the largest families of flowering plants in the world. There are 700 genera in the family Orchidaceae and approximately 20,000 species. Orchids are best known for their beautiful flowers, which are economically valuable to the horticultural industry. However, vanilla is the only genus that has economic importance as a food source.
Of the 110 varieties of vanilla, only two types are used commercially Bourbon and Tahitian. We carry both varieties.
Tahitian vanilla, or Vanilla tahitensis, originated from plant stock taken to Tahiti, which probably mutated in the wild. It is now regarded as a different species, with an appearance and flavor different than that of Bourbon vanilla. Tahitian vanilla is sweet and fruity and contains less natural vanillin. It has a floral fragrance and the bean is fatter and moister than Bourbon vanilla.
Bourbon vanilla, or Vanilla planifolia, originated in Mexico (vanilla's birthplace). Bourbon vanilla cuttings were taken in the 1800s and grown by the French in large plantations in Reunion, then known as the Ile de Bourbon. Bourbon vanilla has the familiar vanilla flavor we have come to know and love in ice cream and flavored desserts and drinks.
Today, vanilla is used not only as a flavoring in foods, beverages, and medicines but also as a fragrance in perfumes and other scented products, from body care to candles and air fresheners. It has long been credited with aphrodisiac qualities, and recent research has shown the effectiveness of its scent in increasing arousal in mature men.
As a medicine, vanilla has been used for centuries as a stimulant as well as, paradoxically, a treatment for hysteria and nervousness. The fragrance of heliotropin a sweet, vanilla-like scent has now been shown to reduce anxiety in patients undergoing medical procedures such as MRIs and CAT scans. Vanilla has historically been used as a calmative to overcome nausea, and its scent recently has been found to reduce intake of sweet foods in overweight people, thus contributing to weight loss.
To use the vanilla bean in your favorite recipes, you can split it open lengthwise, scrape out the thousands of tiny black seeds, and add them to your dish. Many people, however, prefer to just grind the whole bean in a spice or coffee grinder, for use in recipes. And to add rich vanilla flavor to your blended creations, just cut the bean into small pieces and add them to the mix in your VitaMix or other powerful blender.
Immerse the whole bean in beverages, such as tea or juices, to impart a delicious flavor and aroma you can even use the same bean several times. Ground beans can be used to provide additional flavor to ice creams or a wide variety of foods. They are especially good in recipes using our cacao beans, such as fudge, nut butters, and chocolate shakes.
