Vanilla farm trip

We had such an interesting day yesterday. We went with about ten people to a friend's vanilla farm and processing plant. This is a case where pictures would be worth a thousand words, but we sent our camera to RVA for Scott to use so we didn't have it along. We may get some pictures from others who went so we'll post them if they turn out.

Anyway, we saw vanilla, cocoa, and coffee growing. The vanilla was especially interesting because of how involved it is to grow. They train the vine up a tree that provides shade for it. Each vanilla bean grows from a flower and - get this - each flower only blooms for one day and they must hand pollinate it during that day. It's an amazingly labor intensive operation.

After traipsing around the hillsides where the plants grow we went into the processing plant. Again, it's a fascinating and long process to get the beans ready to ship. It involves boiling them, wrapping them in blankets, setting them out on trays in the sun for a couple hours a day for weeks, sorting them by hand (there must have been 100 people sitting on the floor of the sorting room going through the beans one by one) and then storing them for months to let them cure.

Phil, the farm owner, told us about many other aspects of the operation - things like the problems of selling to the Fair Trade market, the complex chemistry of vanilla, and various aspects of marketing. Apparently the vanilla market is subject to boom and bust like many other things. There was a boom in the early 2000s which peaked in 2004 with beans going for $500/kilo. Now they sell for $20/kilo. Uganda is one of the world's leading producers of vanilla though it trails far behind Madagascar.

Being that Phil and his family are British, we broke for elevensies in the midst of our day--a snack of tea and biscuits and fruit around 11:00 a.m. Quite a nice tradition.