Vanilla

When I pulled my item out of the bag, I thought it was a clear cigar tube. When I looked at the contents of the tube, I thought it was beef jerky. Upon further inspection I figured out that it was a tube of vanilla bean pods. I opened the lid and the unmistakable vanilla fragrance came rushing out of the tube and into my nose. I explored the item and started to read different stickers and labels that were present on the exterior. “Rich, strong vanilla flavor. Perfect for all dessert making, from ice cream to cheesecake,” is what the label said, trying to convince the user that this product will make anything taste good.
The actual beans are 8-9 inches long and are a little skinnier than a pencil. They have a dark brown color and are wrinkly and shriveled, almost like an elongated raisin that smells a lot better. The texture is stiff, but still malleable with a very oily feel to them. The ends where it was cut off of the plant are curled and withered. Once you peel back the tough outer skin, the seeds are exposed. Although the skin can be used to flavor coffee and sugar, the real flavorful part of the plant comes from inside. You can scrape the inside contents out into whatever you want to flavor, whether that be a cake or some ice cream.
The vanilla beans come from Madagascar, a large island off the coast of Africa. Madagascar is the world’s largest exporter of vanilla. They’re economy depends heavily on this natural cash crop. So much so that when New Coke came out, there economy took a vicious downturn because it uses much less vanilla than regular Coke. After regular Coke came back, they recovered. The vanilla bean pods are all harvested by hand through a very labor intensive process in which it takes them almost a year to fully treat and produce what is in the tube right now. Its totally worth it whenever you open the top and smell the familiar aroma.