From sacred Aztec drink to the world's favourite flavour - five centuries of an extraordinary spice.
Vanilla was first cultivated by the Totonac people of Mexico. The Aztecs prized it so highly they collected vanilla beans as tribute and blended it into their royal cacao drink, xocolatl.
Spanish conquistadors carried vanilla back to Europe, where it became a luxury of royal courts - flavouring chocolate, perfumes and medicine for the wealthy.
For three centuries, only Mexico could produce vanilla. Vines grown elsewhere flowered but never fruited - nobody knew that a tiny Mexican bee, the Melipona, was the flower's only natural pollinator.
Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved boy on the island of Réunion, invented the simple hand-pollination technique still used on every vanilla farm in the world today. His discovery broke the Mexican monopoly and created the global vanilla industry.
French planters carried vanilla to Madagascar and the Comoros. The northeast "SAVA" region of Madagascar proved perfect, and the island grew into the world's vanilla capital - today producing the majority of global supply.
Chemists learned to make synthetic vanillin cheaply, yet demand for real vanilla never faded - premium brands, chefs and perfumers insist on natural beans, keeping true vanilla precious.
Vanilla cultivation took root in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. When world prices soared past US$500 per kg in the 2010s crisis years, Indian farmers proved this crop can transform rural incomes - and the new wave of managed vanilla farming began.
Five hundred years of history, and demand has never been higher. The next era of vanilla is being planted now.