True vanilla is a demanding crop, so labor-intensive that at times the market value of the beans has surpassed that of silver, weight for weight. And since each bean yields only 2 percent vanillin at best, the cost of pure vanilla is even higher. The vanilla bean on my desk comes from the small Hawaiian town of Laie on Oahu’s North Shore. It’s longer and darker than the other vanilla beans in my cupboard, its fragrance more insistently narcotic. To begin with, while the vanilla orchid — planifolia is the species most widely grown — is a hermaphrodite (like most flowering plants), with both male and female parts, it can’t pollinate itself.

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Persons: Wendell Steavenson, Saili Levi, Edmond, toiling, planifolia, haricots Organizations: NPR, Vanilla Company Locations: Madagascar, Laie, Shore, Samoa, Hawaii, United States, Oahu, Mexico, Réunion