10 Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans, selected one by one, packed in an airtight glass tube. Plump beans, 14 to 18 cm, slow traditional drying. It's the format with the best quantity-to-price ratio while guaranteeing optimal storage for up to 24 months.

Bourbon Vanilla Beans, Large Glass Tube of 10

€20,40
5.0/5 · 3 reviews
Variety
Vanilla planifolia, Bourbon
Terroir
SAVA region, north-east of Madagascar
Preparation
Hand-pollinated, blanched, sun-dried, cured
Size
M or L, 13 to 18 cm
Aromatic notes
Cocoa · Prune · Butter · Woody
Best for
Custards, ice creams, flans, spiced rum

Ten Bourbon vanilla beans from Madagascar in a sealed glass tube, in size M (13 to 15 cm) or L (16 to 18 cm), your choice. The generous format for everyday baking.

Beans Size M · 13 to 15 cm

Frequently added together

What our customers say

5.0Out of 5 3 verified reviews
The vanilla is top quality, nice and plump and fragrant, I only buy from them now!
Anonyme Verified purchase

Our vanilla beans ship from France within 48 hours, tracked, and the bag is vacuum sealed.

The price per bean drops from two items

What is in the tube

Ten plump, supple beans, a single size per tube: M (13 to 15 cm) for everyday baking, or L (16 to 18 cm) when vanilla is meant to show on the plate. Our tubes stand 18 cm tall: an XL bean (19 to 20 cm) does not fit inside. That is why this size only comes in a pouch, never in a tube.

Origin

Our family grows and cures this vanilla in the SAVA region, in the north-east of Madagascar. From hand pollination to curing, everything happens at home: there is nobody between our land and your kitchen. Bourbon variety, Vanilla planifolia.

Storage

Away from air, light and moisture, at room temperature. Never in the fridge. The white bloom that may appear over time is crystallised vanillin, a sign of richness, never mould.

Ingrédients

100 % Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans (Vanilla planifolia).

Notes aromatiques

On the nose, a round opening of cocoa, prune, blond tobacco. On the palate, a buttery milky heart, almost creamy, and a long, slightly woody finish. Bitter or smoky notes (typical of poorly dried vanilla) are absent. The natural vanillin content sits around 1.8 to 2.2%, above the market average. Persistence on the palate: more than a minute. When you open the tube, the scent fills the room.

Conseils d'utilisation
  • Ice cream (1 L of mix): 1.5 beans, split and scraped. The black seeds should be visible in the finished ice cream.
  • Brioche / kouglof dough (500 g of flour): 1 scraped bean, added to the warm milk to activate the starter.
  • Fig / mirabelle plum jam (1 kg of fruit): 1 split bean, removed at the end of cooking, rinsed and reused.
  • Vanilla syrup for cocktails (500 ml): 2 split beans, warm syrup, 24 h infusion.
  • Vanilla sauce for scallops or lobster: ¼ bean in 100 ml of cream, 10 min infusion, finished with butter.

With 10 beans, count on roughly 15 to 20 family desserts, or a full quarter of weekly baking.

They say it better than we do

Customer reviews

5.0 / 5
3 reviews
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 Anonyme Verified purchase

    Excellent.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 Anonyme

    Very, very good

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 Anonyme Verified purchase

    The vanilla is top quality, nicely oily and fragrant. I have only bought from them since!

Fourteen months of work, eight steps

From the flower to the parcel

The journey of one vanilla bean at our place, from the flower pollinated by hand to the carton that leaves for France.

  1. A hand parts the petals of a vanilla flower to pollinate it
    Pollination

    The flower

    It opens for a single morning. It has to be married by hand, flower after flower, before the sun climbs.

    Hand pollination of a vanilla flower. Illustrative image.

  2. Green vanilla beans hanging from a vanilla vine
    Nine months on the vine

    The bean

    Nine months hanging on the vine. We cut when the tip turns yellow, not a day sooner.

    Green beans on the vine, before the cut. Illustrative image.

  3. Vanilla beans spread out in the sun on mats
    Sun drying

    The sun

    Scalded in hot water, the beans go out on the mats every morning. They turn brown and wrinkle.

    Sun drying on the mats, SAVA region.

  4. Vanilla beans drying in the shade on long tarpaulins
    Slow drying

    The shade

    In the afternoon they come back in to finish drying in the shade. This coming and going lasts for weeks.

    Back in the shade for slow drying, SAVA region.

  5. Bundles of vanilla laid side by side in a paper-lined trunk
    In the trunk

    The ageing

    Tied in bundles, laid down in paper. The aroma gathers over months.

    Bundles stored in a trunk for ageing.

  6. Sorters grading vanilla beans on a workshop table
    Grading

    The sorting

    Bean by bean, by length and by grain. Each size leaves in its own bundle.

    Sorting and grading at the workshop, Sambava.

  7. Gloved hands filling glass tubes with vanilla beans
    Workshop

    Into the tube

    Counted, lined up, slipped one by one into the glass. Gloves, apron, clean table.

    Filling the tubes, beans counted one by one.

  8. Numbered and strapped export cartons lined up in the warehouse
    Export

    The departure

    Cartons weighed, numbered, strapped. They leave Sambava for France.

    Numbered cartons, ready for export.

Our family grows, cures, sorts and ships. Between the vine and your kitchen there is nobody else.

Steps 1 and 2: royalty-free illustrative images. Green beans on the vine, photo RAJOELIMBOLOLONA Maryo Sebastieni, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The other six photos are ours, taken in the SAVA region of Madagascar.

The move

Split and scrape

  1. Split lengthwise

    Knife tip halfway through, one single pass from end to end.

  2. Scrape out the seeds

    The back of the blade scrapes both halves. That black is the caviar.

  3. Infuse the bean too

    The emptied skin holds the flavour: it goes into the cream with the seeds. Never throw it away.

One bean, split and scraped, flavours a litre of cream.

From the bag to the scale

20 beans or 250 g?

Four vanilla beans in sizes S, M, L and XL lined up along a centimetre ruler

Size M

1 kg

250 beans

Size

Our four sizes, measured against the ruler. The bag itself is sold by weight.

  1. One bean weighs

    4g

    Average weight of one size M bean, measured on our bags.

  2. 250 g is

    63beans

  3. Per kilo

    250beans

    And 500 g is ≈ 125 beans.

The bag states its weight, and we write the size.

Ten Bourbon vanilla beans laid out in a fan on a black background

Our beans laid out in a fan, close-up on the skin. Photograph of our own sizes, unretouched.

The frost

Those white crystals on the bean

  1. What you see

    A veil of fine white crystals along the bean. Dry, glossy, in streaks that follow the ridges.

  2. What it is

    Crystallised vanillin, risen from the heart of the bean. Never mould: mould is fuzzy and smells musty. Frost smells of vanilla.

  3. What to do

    Nothing. The bean goes back into its tube. It is a sign of richness: do not throw it away.

Frost is a sign of richness, not a flaw.

Read the wiki entry on vanillin frost
Growers, not resellers

Our commitments

Our family grows

Our family grows

From hand pollination to curing, everything happens on our land, in the SAVA region in northeastern Madagascar. There is no one between our land and your kitchen.

From the grower to your kitchen

From the grower to your kitchen

The vanilla beans ship from France within 48 hours, tracked, vacuum sealed. Direct grower pricing, no middleman, no broker.

The size is on the label

The size is on the label

Every vanilla bean is measured with a gauge and the size is written on the bag. You know exactly what you're paying for.

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One letter a month: the harvest, the recipes, and the new sizes on the way. Nothing else.

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