Vanilla Farm
07 July 2008
We toured a small vanilla farm and were surprised at how labor intensive it is to grow. The bees they introduced to pollinate did not survive with the tough Polynesian bees, so they have to manually pollinate the small blossoms which don't appear until the plant is about 2 years old. When the bean is ready to pick, about 9 months later, an intensive drying process complete with massages begins.