Next: about 1 May to 29 Jul 2027
Madagascar vanilla harvest
In the SAVA region, orchids are pollinated by hand and the pods picked after nine months, then cured for weeks.
Spices for Madagascar vanilla harvest
Vanilla vines bear flowers that open for a single morning, so each bloom must be pollinated by hand, a technique found by a boy on Reunion in 1841. In northeastern Madagascar the green pods are picked after about nine months, between May and July, scalded in hot water, sweated under blankets and dried slowly in the sun for weeks until they become dark, fragrant and flexible. Madagascar and the Comoros produce most of the world's natural vanilla, and the long process explains the price, which is second only to saffron.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Vanilla" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Clove: Bayu Nugroho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source