Vanilla Absolute Madagascar
Vanilla absolute is rich, sweet, creamy, woody and spicy, with facets of leather, caramel and tobacco. Mysterious and exotic, it brings warmth, sensuality and longevity to the fragrance. This powerful ingredient surprises us with its duality between childhood memories and sensuality.
Vanilla is the fruit of an orchid liana. Its sinuous, fleshy stem embraces its support and rises to the light thanks to its aerial roots. The axils of the thick, shiny leaves bear clusters of ephemeral yellow-green flowers.
The flowering season lasts about two months and begins during the rainy season from October to November. During this period, a fastidious process of hand pollination is carried out on each flower. The green pods are harvested by hand when fully ripe between May and August, when gulcovanillin, the precursor of vanillin, is at its peak.
The green pods are scalded in water at 60-70°C for a few minutes to release enzymes that convert the glucovanillin into vanillin. The beans are then slowly dehydrated for a few months to bring the humidity down to 20-25%. It is during this process of drying, part of the day on blankets in the direct sun, the other part in the shade, wrapped and stored to retain as much heat as possible, that the vanilla aroma develops. It is only at this point that the pods are processed and converted into absolute by solvent extraction.
When Vanilla planifolia was introduced to Madagascar and La Réunion, the orchid was at first podless as the islands were missing its pollinating insect. It was then discovered that vanilla flowers could be pollinated by hand, using a stick and a twist of the thumb, a technique still required today.
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