Plump, sweet, and intensely aromatic, Kaveri Vanilla comes from the foothills of Kumily, Kerala, where it is grown by over 100 smallholder farmers. Each farm grows a few precious vanilla vines to add value beyond their coconut, coffee, and black pepper crops.

The quality of vanilla comes down to two things: the pods, and the quality of the curing, which takes several months. Our juicy pods are sourced by Reginold Kavukattu and his family, who have been curing vanilla using their secret family technique for three generations.

There are three strains of vanilla across the world. Ours comes from the Madagascar strain, prized for their high vanillin content, the plant compound that gives vanilla its signature flavor.

Vanilla “beans” are the cured seedpods of the tropical vanilla orchid: a rare and delicate plant whose flowers are individually hand-pollinated to bear fruit, due to the near-extinction of its primary natural pollinator, the melipona bee. Each bloom lasts only a few days, which means the window for pollination is extremely short.