Pompona XXL vanilla is the rare one. Giant beans (20 to 25 cm), thick, fleshy, with a vivid aromatic palette · floral, aniseed, fruity, almost sun drenched. Worlds away from the classic Bourbon. For chefs who want a signature, and vanilla enthusiasts who want to taste the extraordinary.

Pompona XXL vanilla from Madagascar · beans of 20 to 25 cm

€37,90
5.0/5 · 1 review
Variety
Vanilla pompona
Terroir
Madagascar
Size
XXL, 20 to 25 cm
Aromatic notes
Orange blossom · Aniseed · Fig
Best for
Crème brûlée, cocktails, a chef's signature

A rare variety with massive beans: Pompona XXL vanilla, beans of 20 to 25 cm with floral and chocolate notes. A premium selection that our family grows and prepares in Madagascar, available from 2 beans up to the kilo.

Quantity 5 beans

Frequently added together

What our customers say

5.0Out of 5 1 verified review

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

The price per bean drops from two items

Origin & terroir

Our family grows and prepares these beans in Madagascar, on shaded, humid plots. They are selected one by one for their suppleness, their sheen and their aromatic richness, at the direct grower price, with no middleman at all.

Tasting & uses

A deep, intense aroma, with floral and chocolate notes.

  • Baking (custards, ice creams, desserts): 2 to 4 beans per litre
  • Drinks and infusions: 1 to 2 beans per litre
  • Infused rum: 3 to 5 beans per litre
  • Delicate savoury cooking

To go further: choosing your vanilla well.

Storage

Away from air, light and damp. Detailed advice: storage & preparation.

The format

Vacuum sealed pouch of 2, 5, 10 or 20 beans of 20 to 25 cm, or packed by weight in 500 g and 1 kg for workshops. An exceptional product: quantities are limited by the harvest.

Ingrédients

100 % Madagascar Pompona vanilla beans (Vanilla pompona).

Notes aromatiques

Nothing like Bourbon. Pompona opens with powerful floral notes (orange blossom, jasmine), then moves into gentle anise notes (licorice, fennel), with a fruity base (fig, dried apricot). No cocoa, no tobacco: this is a sunny, almost perfumed vanilla. The bean is very thick, rich in pulp, but the vanillin content is lower than Bourbon (about 1 to 1.5%) · offset by a far wider range of aromatic molecules (heliotropin in particular). Very long persistence on the palate, an almost pastry like finish.

Conseils d'utilisation
  • Signature crème brûlée (4 ramekins): 1 Pompona bean · the floral effect turns a classic into a chef’s dish.
  • Cocktails & spirits: 1 split bean in 70 cl of agricultural white rum, macerate for 4 to 6 weeks. Exceptional results in tiki cocktails or a tropical punch.
  • Exotic fruit pastries (mango, pineapple, passion fruit): half a bean infused in the cream or syrup. Pompona plays with the fruit rather than overpowering it.
  • Bold savory dishes (pan seared foie gras, glazed duck breast): a quarter bean, infused in the jus or sauce. The anise note surprises and pairs beautifully with the richness.
  • Edible perfumery (sugar, salt, ganache): 1 bean in 500 g of base, long infusion · you get a signature ingredient impossible to imitate.

They say it better than we do

Customer reviews

5.0 / 5
1 review
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 CHIMELE Verified purchase

    Hello,
    I used the bean to make a passion fruit flavoured rum.
    Michèle

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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