Vanilla

Warm, sweet and creamy, with a balsamic, slightly smoky depth.

• The vanilla flower opens for just one day – which is why almost every blossom in the growing regions is pollinated by hand, using a technique invented in 1841 by a 12-year-old boy on Réunion: Edmond Albius.

Freshly harvested pods barely smell at all – only 3 to 6 months of curing and drying turn glucovanillin into vanillin. Natural vanilla contains more than 200 aroma compounds.