Vanilla

About

Vanilla is the cured seed pod of orchids of the genus Vanilla, the spice an ingredient list names when the pod itself, whole, ground or infused, is what went into the recipe. United States regulation puts the material precisely: vanilla beans are the properly cured and dried fruit pods of Vanilla planifolia Andrews and of Vanilla tahitensis Moore.^[1] Most of the world's crop is V. planifolia, sold as Bourbon or Madagascar vanilla after Île Bourbon, the former name of Réunion. The vine is not self-pollinating, and commercial growing depends on hand pollination by the method Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion, worked out in 1841. By weight vanilla is the world's second most expensive spice after saffron.^[2]

World production of raw vanilla was 7,433 tonnes in 2023, led by Madagascar with 42 % of the total and Indonesia with 25 %; a third cultivated species, V. pompona, grows in the West Indies and in Central and South America. One flower sets one fruit, each pod ripens at its own time and is picked by hand, and the harvest is then killed, sweated, dried and conditioned in closed boxes for five to six months before the fragrance is fully developed, which is what makes the spice so labour-intensive; cured fruits contain on average 2.5 % vanillin. The Totonac of what is now Veracruz were among the first to cultivate the vine, the Aztecs took the pods after 1427, and Hernán Cortés is credited with bringing vanilla to Europe in the 1520s.^[2]

The distinction this page carries is the one an ingredient list makes, and it is the reason this page and ingredient/vanilla-flavouring are two pages rather than one. This page is the agricultural material; vanilla extract is the solution in aqueous ethanol of the sapid and odorous principles extractable from these pods,^[3] and states derived_from this page; vanillin is the single compound that dominates their aroma. A vanilla flavouring, by contrast, need not come from a pod at all: only a flavouring described as natural vanilla flavouring must have its flavouring component obtained exclusively, or by at least 95 % by weight, from vanilla.^[4] A pack printing "flavouring: vanilla" is therefore naming a flavouring, not this ingredient, so neither page is a narrower form of the other and neither takes the other as a parent.

Products (2)

Relations

• Contains Vanillin^[2] sourced
  Cured vanilla fruits contain an average of 2.5 % vanillin, but the pod also carries several hundred other aroma compounds, so the pod and the compound are not the same ingredient.

Referenced by

• Source of Vanilla extract sourced
  21 CFR 169.175(a): the solution in aqueous ethyl alcohol of the sapid and odorous principles extractable from vanilla beans. The pod is what separates this page from ingredient/vanilla-flavouring.

Also known as

• Vanilla beans en
• Vanilla pods en
• Vanilla bean en
• Vanille fr
• Vanille de
• vanille nl
• vainilla es
• vaniglia it
• baunilha pt
• vanilj sv
• vanilje da
• vanilje nb
• vanilja fi
• wanilia pl
• vanilka cs
• vanilie ro
• ванилия bg
• βανίλια el
• ваниль ru
• vanilya tr

References

1. ↑ 21 CFR 169.3: Definitions of vanilla beans, unit weight and unit of vanilla constituent Cornell Legal Information Institute. publication. Published 1977-03-15. Accessed 2026-09-15. Paragraphs (a) to (c).
2. ↑ Wikipedia: Vanilla Wikipedia. publication. Accessed 2026-09-15. Lede; History; Vanilla orchid; Curing; Production.
3. ↑ 21 CFR 169.175: Vanilla extract Cornell Legal Information Institute. publication. Published 1977-03-15. Accessed 2026-09-15. Paragraph (a).
4. ↑ Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008, Article 16: specific requirements for use of the term "natural" legislation.gov.uk. publication. Accessed 2026-09-15. Article 16(4).

Further sources

Additional sources recorded for this entry, including other observations and related pages.

• Уикипедия: Ванилия (Bulgarian Wikipedia: Vanilla) Wikipedia. publication. Accessed 2026-09-15. Lede.