CURING

A properly cured and dried vanilla is brown, fragrant, and pliable - you should be able to wrap it around your finger without it breaking - with a lustrous, oily shine.

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To turn a flavorless green bean into a thin aromatic brown bean there are a number of different processes to undertake;

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• Killing - after the harvesting of the green beans just as the tips turn yellow, they must be 'killed' by plunging them briefly into hot water. This stops further maturation and the possibility of the beans splitting. This is the method used in Madagascar and has become to be known as the Bourbon method.

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• Sweating - the beans are sweated in wool blankets and then taken out to dry in the sun for a few hours each day, before being tucked up again for the night to sweat. This process lasts for 2-3 weeks until the beans have lost a sufficient amount of moisture and have become beautifully fragrant.

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• Drying - once the sweating process is complete, the beans have to be dried for several more months. The size of the beans denotes the amount of time needed, so constant daily monitoring is required. During this time the beans are massaged by hand to straighten and condition them.

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Vanilla is the most labour intensive crop in the world - which explains why it is so expensive.