Vanilla Bean facts

While investigating facts about Vanilla Bean Paste and Vanilla Bean Frappuccino, I found out little known, but curios details like:

All vanilla beans must be hand pollinated because the only species of bee capable of pollinating a vanilla bean orchid is likely extinct.

how vanilla beans grow?

About the “Magic 8”. Before 1491, corn, beans, squash, chili, tomato, potato, vanilla, and cacao weren’t found anywhere in the world outside of the Americas.

What's vanilla bean?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what vanilla beans are best. Here are 20 of the best facts about Vanilla Bean Frappe and Vanilla Bean Powder I managed to collect.

what's vanilla bean paste?

1. Vanilla flowers only open once for 2-3 hours and require hand pollination to produce a bean

2. Aztecs used cocoa beans as money, and only the nobles were allowed to drink hot cocoa, which the spiced with vanilla and chiles.

3. Vanilla beans are the 2nd most expensive spice in the world due to a current, global vanilla bean crisis caused, in part, by a 2017 hurricane in Madagascar.

4. All vanilla beans in the world originated in Mexico, though very few vanilla beans are grown there today.

5. The world is in the middle of a massive shortage of vanilla beans

6. Vanilla beans are actually orchid seeds.

7. The demand for vanilla flavoring has long exceeded the supply of vanilla beans and today most vanillin is produced from petrochemicals

8. Despite being called a "vanilla bean", vanilla is actually an orchid seed pod

9. French vanilla is not a variety of the vanilla bean. It's named for the French way of making ice cream with an egg custard base.

Why vanilla beans?

You can easily fact check why use vanilla bean paste by examining the linked well-known sources.

Vanilla beans come from a species of orchid.

Veracruz is Mexico's leading exporter of coffee, sugar, corn, and rice, but vanilla, bananas, and beans also comprise a major portion of the state's agricultural sector.

The world is currently experiencing a massive shortage of vanilla beans - source

Vanilla farmers brand the raw beans to protect them from "Vanilla rustlers".

It takes 126,505 litres of water to produce a kg of vanilla beans - source

When to use vanilla bean paste?

The Price of Vanilla Beans is Now Higher Than the Price of Silver

How vanilla beans are grown?

It takes 15,159 gallons of water to produce one pound of vanilla beans, over 8 times as much water as it takes to produce a pound of beef (1847 gallons).