Vanilla Beans (18cm+)
Hand-pollinated within hours of the flower opening — real vanilla, slowly cured.
₹ 649
- Bean length
- 18 cm+
- Origin
- Chikmagalur · Karnataka
- Harvest
- Cured 6 months
- Handling
- 2.2 – 3% vanillin, hand-pollinated
Why it costs moreEvery flower is hand-pollinated within hours of opening, then cured for about six months — which is why real vanilla costs what it does.
- Ships in 1–2 working days
- Harvest: December – February
- Small-batch packed
- FSSAI details on pack
- Region
- Chikmagalur, Karnataka
- Harvest
- December – February · hand-pollinated, cured over months
- Batch
- On every pack
- Packed
- By hand, small-batch · Surat, Gujarat
- Use
- Split and scrape the pod; the empty pod still flavours sugar or milk
- Storage
- Airtight, away from light, steam & heat
Vanillin is the compound you taste and smell. Ours runs 2.2 – 3% across lots, tested by IS 4272 — the range Madagascar Bourbon beans compete in, and well above the vanilla usually sold in India. Every lot is tested; the figure on a given batch is the one that batch measured.
Vanilla is the second most expensive spice on earth after saffron, and the reason is labour rather than rarity. The vine grows readily enough. It is everything after the flower that costs.
The flower opens for less than a day and, outside its native Mexico, has no insect that will pollinate it. So somebody walks the rows each morning with a sliver of bamboo and pollinates each bloom by hand. Miss the window and that flower produces nothing. The pods then take the better part of a year to mature — and after picking they are still odourless, because green vanilla smells of grass. The vanillin is developed afterwards, over roughly six months of killing, sweating, sun-drying and conditioning. The aroma is made after the harvest, not before it.
Chikmagalur is coffee country, and vanilla grows there for a practical reason: it needs shade and something to climb, and a coffee estate already has both. These are Vanilla planifolia, the Bourbon type — the only orchid on earth grown for food.
Length is the grading standard, and 18 centimetres and over is the premium tier. Longer pods generally mean fuller, oilier, better-cured beans.
In the kitchen. Split the pod and scrape the seed into warm milk or cream. Keep the empty pod — buried in a jar of sugar it will keep giving for months.
A good bean should be supple enough to wrap around a finger without snapping. Brittle vanilla has been over-dried, and no amount of soaking brings it back.
Vanilla is an orchid, and every flower must be hand-pollinated within hours of opening — a fact that alone explains why real vanilla costs what it does. VIROOT's beans are grown along the shaded coffee estates of Chikmagalur, Karnataka, hand-cured over several months of alternating sun and sweat-box fermentation until the pod turns near-black and develops its characteristic bloom of vanillin crystals. At 18 centimetres and above, running 2.2 – 3% vanillin by IS 4272 — the range Madagascar Bourbon beans compete in — these beans stand shoulder to shoulder with Madagascar's best — graded among the longest, plumpest pods of the harvest.
Split the pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds for custards, ice cream or baking. Don't discard the scraped pod — simmer it in milk or bury it in a jar of sugar, and it will keep flavouring for weeks.
Dispatched within 1–2 working days. Store away from light, steam, and the stove — aroma belongs in the jar, until the pan.
Is this 100% pure?
Yes. Single-ingredient, single-origin, with no added colour, no preservatives and no fillers. Batch number, harvest month and FSSAI details are printed on every pack.
Do you ship across India?
Yes. Orders are packed and dispatched within 1–2 working days.
How should I store it?
Airtight, away from light, steam and the stove. Aroma belongs in the jar, until the pan.
