From the archive record
Vanilla beans maturing on vanilla vines in a Kerala plantation in India. This is where the vanilla flavour you taste in your ice creams comes from! Vanilla is a tropical orchid, cultivated for its pleasant flavour, which is one of the costliest spices in the international market. Though more than 50 species of vanilla exist, only three are important as sources of vanillin. Vanilla planifolia Andrews is the most preferred commercially and therefore, cultivated widely. The Indian farmers started vanilla cultivation in the mid- to late 1990s, prompted, mainly by the falling profits from rubber and coffee. Besides, vanilla could be grown even on small plots of land and the initial investment required is small. Today, India stands sixth among the world's eight vanilla-exporting nations, up fro