Quick answer: a vanilla grade is not a tasting score, it is a sort. It classifies the bean by its moisture, its length and its appearance. Gourmet Grade A holds 30 to 35% moisture, stays whole and supple, and can be split. TK is the same vanilla dried further, 25 to 30%. Red gathers the reddish-brown or split beans, 20 to 25%, for extraction. Cuts are pieces. The moister and more intact the grade, the more it costs per kilo, and the larger the share of that kilo that is water.
A grade is a basket, not a verdict
Sorting is done on tables, by hand, after curing. The bean passes between the fingers: it is bent, smelled, laid against a wooden ruler, and it drops into one of four baskets. The grade is the name of that basket. Nothing more.
This matters, because the word "grade" suggests a hierarchy of flavour. There is none. A Red bean from the same vine, picked the same day as its Gourmet neighbour, carries the same vanilla. It simply opened as it ripened, or lost two more points of moisture in the drying room. What changes is what you can do with it, and therefore what it is worth.
Our family grows in the SAVA region, in the north-east of Madagascar, and six to eight months pass between harvest and sale. Blanching in hot water, sweating in chests, drying in the morning sun then in the shade, curing in chests for months. The grade is only decided at the end of that chain, once the bean has stopped changing.
Gourmet Grade A: the bean you split
Moisture of 30 to 35%. Whole bean, never split, uniform dark brown, supple enough to wrap around a finger without breaking, and slightly oily to the touch.
It is the only grade that stands up to the pastry kitchen's gesture: you split it end to end with a knife, scrape out the caviar, and put the empty bean back in to infuse. A bean that is too dry tears under the blade and the caviar stays stuck inside.
Our sizes follow length: S from 10 to 12 cm, M from 13 to 15 cm, L from 16 to 18 cm, XL from 19 to 20 cm. Length adds no fragrance per gram; it adds comfort and substance per bean. On our Bourbon vanilla beans page, a single bean runs from 1.90 € in S to 4.90 € in XL, and the kilo goes from 165 € in S to 248 € in L. The same product, sorted differently.
A calculation few people make: at 33% moisture, a kilo of Gourmet contains about 330 g of water. You are paying for that water. And you are right to pay for it, because it is what makes the bean splittable and gives it its suppleness. But you should know it before comparing two prices per kilo.
TK: the same vanilla, dried further
Moisture of 25 to 30%. A whole, unsplit bean as well, but thinner, lighter, stiffer. TK is a trade abbreviation: it names that basket, and we know of no official meaning worth repeating.
TK still bends, but it cracks sooner. It is chosen for long infusions, extract, syrup, powder, sugar, anywhere the bean will macerate or be ground.
Its appeal is arithmetic. At equal length, a TK bean weighs less than a Gourmet because it holds less water. A kilo of TK therefore contains more beans, and more aromatic dry matter. For an ice-cream maker who infuses, or a distiller who macerates, it is very often the best value in the catalogue. For a pastry chef who scrapes, it is not.
Red: the split bean
Moisture of 20 to 25%. Reddish-brown to mahogany in colour, often paler, with a share of beans split along their length.
A bean opens because it was left to ripen a little longer on the vine. It is an accident of timing, not a fault in the growing. It has exactly the fragrance of its neighbours. It simply can no longer be presented in a glass tube, and it dried faster through the opening.
Red is an extraction grade: alcohol extracts, syrups, vanilla sugars, macerations, ice creams. It is the grade for fragrance at the best cost when appearance does not come into play. Its price per kilo sits well below TK.
Cuts: the pieces
Pieces. Short sections, broken beans, ends. Moisture sits in the same range as Red, around 20 to 25%, but it is by nature less even: a lot of Cuts brings together fragments that did not all dry together.
Use: industrial extraction, powder, large-volume maceration. The lowest price per kilo of the four. It is the only grade that should be bought on analysis rather than by eye, asking for the lot's vanillin content and its moisture level. Ours come from our own sorting, and we state which harvest they come from.
Comparing grades without getting it wrong
The classic mistake is to line up four prices per kilo and pick the lowest. The right calculation is the price of the fragrance, not the price of the material.
Three habits. One: always bring it back to dry weight, subtracting the stated moisture. Two: ask yourself whether the recipe demands a whole bean, because if it does the debate is over, it will be Gourmet. Three: for infusions and extracts, test a dosage on one litre before ordering a kilo; the difference in yield between grades shows in a single night of maceration.
A word of vocabulary for those buying for export: in English, a vanilla bean is a bean. Not a pod, and above all not a clove, which is the spice from the clove tree. An invoice that lists "cloves" is not talking about vanilla.
What we sell, and in what form
At retail, on the shop, we sell only Gourmet Grade A, sized S, M, L or XL. That is a choice: a home cook buying five beans wants to be able to split them. Everything is gathered in the Bourbon vanilla collection.
TK, Red and Cuts are ordered by the kilo, on our professionals page. There we state the lot's moisture level and its harvest year, and we send a sample before any volume order.
To go further, two useful reads: choosing your Bourbon vanilla well, which details the criteria of hand and nose, and storing and preparing the beans, because a badly stored Gourmet becomes a TK within a few weeks. The rest of our guides is filed in the Wiki.
Frequently asked questions
Does Gourmet Grade A taste better than TK?
No, not at equal dry matter. The vanilla is the same, from the same vines. Gourmet is better for one specific use, the one where you split the bean and scrape out the caviar. For an infused cream or an extract, a well-chosen TK gives an identical result, often for less money.
How can I tell whether a bean is really at 30% moisture?
The serious measurement is gravimetric: you weigh a sample, dry it in an oven to constant mass, and compare. By hand, you only get an estimate: a bean that wraps around a finger without marking or cracking is in the upper range; a bean that cracks as it wraps has dropped lower. Insist on the lot's figure in writing for any purchase by the kilo.
Can I buy Red or Cuts in small quantities?
Our professional price list starts at one kilo, but we send a free sample before any order. Write to us from the professionals page, stating your use, maceration, powder or infusion, and the annual volume you are aiming for. We point you towards the cheapest grade that does the job, not the most expensive.
