Our Farmlands

Our farms are mostly all situated in northeast Madagascar, in the region of SAVA.
We have a handful of people working year round to maintain our farmlands.

Our methods are organic and all natural, and we never use any chemical fertilizers or
pesticides on our plants. In fact, we value the work of nature and promote the use of
natural composts to fertilize our crops and keep our soils moist.

Green Vanilla

The vanilla plant flowers between the months of August and January. During this time, these flowers must be manually pollinated in order for them to grow into green vanilla pods. The pods are harvested 8 to 9 months after flowering, usually around the month of June, when the pods have reached full maturity.

Then, the vanilla pods undergo scalding (cooking in hot water), steaming (in a box padded with wool blanket) and finally drying (in the sun and in the shade) processes for approximately 2 months.

The vanilla pods will only be ready for use after a ripening time varying from 6 to 8 months.

When all this is done, approximately 6kg of the green vanilla goes into the production of 1kg of black vanilla.

Drying, Refining & Triaging

The vanilla drying process is a 2 step procedure :

  1. Firstly, the vanilla is sun dried for 2-5 hours a day for a period of 10 or so days
  2. Then, the vanilla is air dried in the shade during 1-2 months.

Drying the vanilla allows us move on to the next steps. Further, it allows us to preserve and develop its flavour and aroma.

Once the drying is completed, we move on to the refining process. This consists of setting the now-dried vanilla pods into wooden skids (or pallets) which are lined with parchment paper. This will allow for the aroma to mature. Finally, the pods are separated and triaged based on their length, quality (black, red, or TK) and based on if they are split or not.

After these steps are completed, the vanilla is now ready for sales!