After harvesting, they begin the process that takes them from farm to your table, developing those flavours on the way. I had hugely underappreciated this stage of the process, and watched a sequence not unlike a grain-to-glass Scottish whisky distillery, with the green beans being quickly immersed in hot water to stop their growing, before being “sweated” for 48 hours in an incubator to develop their flavour. They’re then dried slowly, a process that can take up to a month for bigger beans. Malting and drying if you like the analogy.
Each step changes the character of the beans. Nature in perfect imperfection.
Next, they’re sorted and graded, red/black, split/unsplit, how much moisture remains, what the vanillin content is. Some are further aged in wooden boxes (that whisky comparison again) and graded again into many different levels for different uses and markets. One of the gourmet graders, Aldo, explained how it had taken him 15 years to become a master at sorting the beans. Good vanilla is taken very seriously indeed.