Vanilla begins as a flower. The vanilla orchid grows up trees like a vine, and it has pale yellow flowers that open for only one day a year. If the flower is not pollinated on that single day, no vanilla pod will grow at all.
In Madagascar's wild, only one special bee can pollinate vanilla, and that bee does not live everywhere. So farmers learned a trick: they pollinate every single flower by hand, using a tiny stick to gently lift one part of the flower and press it against another. The whole crop is hand-pollinated, flower by flower, on the day the flower opens.
After the flower is pollinated, a long green pod slowly grows over six to nine months. The green pods do not smell or taste of anything at first. The farmers pick them, then dry them in the sun for weeks. Slowly, the pods turn dark brown and start to smell - that's when they become vanilla.
It is one of the most expensive crops in the world. Around 80 percent of the vanilla used by ice cream and chocolate makers in Europe and America comes from Madagascar. Every pod is the work of many human hands.