🍦Vanilla: Plain + popular = precious

If you do, you’ll pay the consequences—over [$7 an ounce]( if you splurged on the real stuff. For years now, the price of natural vanilla has been rising. And rising fast. In 2013, a kilogram of vanilla seed-pods cost around $20. Today, the same amount of pods—most of which are grown in Madagascar—fetch close to [$600](. That’s more expensive than silver. Blame crop-destroying cyclones and vanilla villains for your costly custards and creams, experts say. You can probably also blame yourself. Rising demand for natural ingredients in the West has put pressure on major companies like Nestlé and Hershey’s to[source real vanilla]( instead of the cheap, synthetic alternative, vanillin, which has long been used to flavor foods like chocolate and ice cream. All of this drama from a flavor that’s … shall we say … kinda vanilla? 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] Vanilla September 17, 2018 Don't spill the extract! --------------------------------------------------------------- If you do, you’ll pay the consequences—over [$7 an ounce]( if you splurged on the real stuff. For years now, the price of natural vanilla has been rising. And rising fast. In 2013, a kilogram of vanilla seed-pods cost around $20. Today, the same amount of pods—most of which are grown in Madagascar—fetch close to [$600](. That’s more expensive than silver. Blame crop-destroying cyclones and vanilla villains for your costly custards and creams, experts say. You can probably also blame yourself. Rising demand for natural ingredients in the West has put pressure on major companies like Nestlé and Hershey’s to[source real vanilla]( instead of the cheap, synthetic alternative, vanillin, which has long been used to flavor foods like chocolate and ice cream. All of this drama from a flavor that’s … shall we say … kinda vanilla? 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Charted[atlas_BJCg0m4_7@2x] Giphy By the digits [80%]( Proportion of the world’s vanilla grown in Madagascar, one of the few countries with both a suitable climate and affordable labor. A handful of other countries, including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Mexico, produce the rest. [$400]( Annual per capita income in Madagascar, the world’s [10th poorest country]( $600: Cost (per kilo) of Madagascar vanilla as of September 10, 2018, according to Cook Flavoring Company [$460]( Cost of silver (per kilo) according to AMPEX [24]( Hours each year that vanilla flowers bloom and can be pollinated by bees, birds, or humans. If they’re not pollinated, they wilt, die, and fall to the ground. [18,000]( Number of vanilla-flavored products on the market [1%]( Proportion of those products flavored with natural vanilla [30%]( Proportion of vanilla ice creams from popular brands surveyed by the watchdog organization Which? that contained no vanilla at all. (Ben & Jerry’s is among those that use real vanilla.) [13%]( Proportion of polled Americans who say vanilla is their favorite flavor of ice cream, second only to chocolate (14%) [250]( Number of aroma and flavor components in vanilla seed-pods [25,000]( Number of flavorful black seeds (or “specks”) found inside a vanilla bean, which are used to flavor high-quality vanilla ice creams Sponsored by SAP Where data flows freely, so does water. --------------------------------------------------------------- Vectus, a company dedicated to water conservation in India, needed major updates to their IT. With SAP S/4HANA, Vectus quickly digitized its core processes and began exploring how mobile and IoT data could help pinpoint leaks, saving as much water as possible.[Learn more at SAP.com]( Reuters/Clarel Faniry Rasoanaivo Fun fact! Vanilla is an [orchid]( native to Central America and the Caribbean, where it climbs up trees like ivy. Million-dollar question Why is vanilla so expensive? --------------------------------------------------------------- Basically, all of the vanilla eggs are in a single basket, and by eggs we mean beans. That basket is the large island nation of Madagascar, which produces a whopping 80% of the world’s vanilla (also: 100% of the world’s lemurs). Last March, Cyclone Enawo tore through the two largest growing regions, [obliterating upwards of 80 percent of the vanilla crop](. That sent the value of vanilla skyrocketing, peaking at a record $600 a kilo in 2017. But storms are just part of the story; a handful of other forces have kept the price elevated. - 📈Rising demand: Consumers in the West want “all natural” flavors, and synthetic vanillin doesn’t make the cut. In response, companies like [Nestlé, Hershey’s, Kellogg, and General Mills]( are sourcing vanilla pods. - 💰Money launderers and thieves: Flush with cash from the illicit rosewood trade, which is rampant in Madagascar, [criminals are buying loads of bean pods]( inflating the value of vanilla before it’s sold for clean dollars. High prices have also attracted bean robbers, who raid farms at night—cutting down vines and uprooting plants, decimating a farmer’s harvest in the process. - 🌱A difficult crop: What orchid isn’t? When newly planted, vanilla vines take a few years to mature and bear pods. When they do, they only bloom for 24 hours a year, during which the flowers must be laboriously hand-pollinated with a toothpick-like stick. After the pods are picked—again, by hand—they have to be soaked in hot water, “sweated,” and carefully dried for a precise hour each day. Processing alone can take months. brief history [1400s]( The Aztecs start growing vanilla after conquering the Totonacs, an indigenous group in Mexico, who are credited with first cultivating it years earlier [1521]( The Spanish conquer the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán and introduce vanilla and its companion cacao to western Europe, where they were consumed together by the wealthy in a chocolate drink [1602]( Hugh Morgan, an apothecary employed by Queen Elizabeth I, invents a vanilla-flavored dessert that the Queen loves, sending vanilla’s popularity soaring [1780s]( Thomas Jefferson discovers vanilla ice cream while living in Paris [1819]( French entrepreneurs introduce vanilla plants to Mauritius and Réunion, but they soon learn that the orchids aren’t producing the precious pods [1836]( Belgian botanist Charles Morren discovers the source of the problem: In the wild, vanilla plants can only be pollinated by certain species of bees and hummingbirds, which aren’t found in the Indian Ocean [1841]( In a major breakthrough, Edmond Albius, a young enslaved man on the island of Réunion, discovered a method for hand-pollinating vanilla flowers using a thin stick. This allows vanilla to be commercially produced outside of its native range. [1858]( French biochemist Nicolas-Théodore Gobley isolates the chemical compound vanillin from vanilla extract for the first time. Quotable “You invest all your life in growing the vanilla. Stealing it is the same thing as killing someone.” —[Lydia Soa, a vanilla farmer in Madagascar]( Reuters/Bryan Woolston Pop quiz What is Bourbon Vanilla named after? A kind of whisky A town in France A famous vanilla farmerAn island in the Indian Ocean Correct. The island of Réunion, where vanilla was introduced in the 19th century, was originally called Bourbon Island (after a lineage of French kings). Today, Bourbon Vanilla describes vanilla grown on Réunion, Madagascar, and Mauritius. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Reuters/Philippe Wojazer Cook this! Thomas Jefferson’s Vanilla Ice Cream --------------------------------------------------------------- The Library of Congress safeguards some of the world’s most precious documents—the Gutenberg Bible, drafts of the Declaration of Independence, the first book ever printed. Oh, and Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for vanilla ice cream, [which he scribbled down]( in Paris while serving as Minister to France in the 18th century. Considered the first ice cream recipe ever to be recorded by an American, it includes instructions like “put the cream on a fire in a casserole” and “strain it thro’ a towel.” If you’re not cooking on a fire, check out [Taste of Home’s modern interpretation](. A very extract science Show me the 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde --------------------------------------------------------------- Also known as “vanillin,” [the most prominent flavor component]( found in natural vanilla extract. In the 19th century, scientists figured out how to synthesize the chemical in a lab using lignin and other cheap resources—including castoreum, a secretion of a beaver’s anal glands. Vanillin is now used to flavor cheap extract and nearly all vanilla products (though fortunately for beavers—and us?—castoreum is now rarely used.) As worrisome as “synthetic” sounds in the age of asparagus water, vanillin isn’t worse for you than natural vanilla—vanillin is vanillin, whether it’s produced in a lab or by a plant. But when it comes to taste? Well, it’s a little more complicated. Natural extract is comprised of 250 aroma and flavor notes, and so it’s much more complex and richer-tasting than vanillin. But here’s the hitch: Many of those notes burn off at high temperatures like those in your oven, and so if you’re baking cookies or cake you probably won’t notice the difference (unless you’re [Mary Berry]( or someone). Here’s a good rule of thumb, according to [Quartzy’s Annaliese Griffin]( “For more delicate items cooked at a lower heat—or no heat at all—think pudding, crème brûlée, and ice cream, real vanilla is more complexly delicious. For anything that goes into a 300-degree oven, stick with vanillin.” Watch this! The other pricey spice --------------------------------------------------------------- If you’ve dipped into your savings for vanilla, you’ll be mortgaging your house for saffron. It’s the most expensive spice in the world, retailing for as much as $5,000 per pound. Why so high? Producing a pound of saffron requires that farmers—most of which are women making $5 a day or less—hand-pick no less than 170,000 saffron crocus flowers, from which they must then carefully extract and dry the blossoms’ stigmas. Fun fact! “During Hernando Cortes’ conquest of the Aztec empire, his men discovered the vanilla plant and dubbed it vainilla, literally ‘little pod’ or ‘little sheath,’ from the Latin vagina, ‘sheath.’” [— Romy Oltuski at Mental Floss]( Reuters/Clarel Faniry Rasoanaivo take me down this 🍦 hole! As vanilla grows in value, Madagascar is flooding with cash—and crime. “The story of the vanilla trade in Madagascar is one of dangers and rewards,” Finbarr O’Reilly writes in a [New York Times photo essay]( in which he documents how the plant has turned into a blood crop. Poll Let’s get to the heart of the matter: Chocolate or vanilla? [Click here to vote]( Vanilla, though personally I’m anything butChocolate, because chocolateMore of a twist person 💬let's talk! 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