Vanilla is seemingly a prima donna spice because its pods have to be hand-pollinated and then boiled and dried in the direct sun for only one hour. iStockphoto

Spices enrich in more ways than one. Raxa Collective’s home base in Kerala has more stories than we can ever recount to prove this point. Some of the world’s most loved (and enriching) spices originate in Kerala. But for now, we put our attention elsewhere in the spice world. Our friends in Zanzibar are deserving of this attention (thanks to the NPR program, the salt, as always):

Let’s start with a spice quiz. One is a bean discovered in Mexico. One’s a tree native to India. One’s the seed of a fruit discovered in Indonesia.

Today vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg can all be found in any spice farm in Zanzibar — the East African archipelago that was used as a spice plantation by the 18^thcentury Omani Empire.

Our guide to Zanzibar is Fadhil Mohammed, and he’s starting with vanilla because vanilla is a prima donna. A type of orchid, it flowers only once a year. So there no time for a bee to find it. A farmer has to pollinate it by hand, with a stick, flower by flower.

The farmer only has one chance to pollinate, Fadhil says, because if the temperamental bloom has not been touched by noon, it dies, just hours after it blossomed. And no pods will ever emerge.

After nine months of maturing, the pods need even more careful attention: They have to be boiled and dried in the direct sun for only one hour. Prima donna indeed. And thus expensive. That’s why the vanilla in your coffee is probably synthetic imitation made in a lab.

Listen to and/or read the whole story here.