THE PROCESS
1.- Orlando vanilla beans grown in a enclosed structures.
2.- The vanilla orchid bud ready to open.
3.- The vanilla orchid in full bloom ready to be pollinated.
4.- Orchid must be pollinated by hand with in a few hours of opening. This is a daily procedure with each plant that goes on for weeks.
5.- Here we have the vanilla beans developing on the vine.
6.- Here the Vanilla Beans have reached maturity. At this point of maturity the beans do not have any flavor and must be removed from the vine to start the curing and flavor developing process.
7.- Fresh vanilla beans ready for the curing process.
8.- Here we have the vanilla beans developing on the vine.
9.- After the vanilla beans have been in the sun for one hour each side of the vanilla bean on a regular sunny day, then are stored in large sweat boxes and cloth covered until next day for same procedure until cured to get moist and flavor development.
10.- Vanilla beans that have been aged for one year, and ready for processing. By allowing the beans to age they develop the more than 150 flavor components in the bean, with Natural Vanilla being the major flavor. And the photo on the rigth: Natural vanillin crystals that have formed on the bean after the ageing process.
11.- Family members sorting and grading vanilla beans. Once our beans have been aged for one year, we then select the prime beans for processing.
12.- Cutting the vanilla beans into 1/8 inch pieces for the extracting process.
13.- Our making of pure natural vanilla is homemade in small 5 gallon batches to control the quality.
14.- Our making of pure natural vanilla is homemade in small 5 gallon batches to control the quality.
15.- This part of the Ramos Family hands on process from the vineyard to the bottled product.
14.- The Orlando Vanilla Team.
15.- Hope this picture display of our process from the vine to you, has been interesting and informative. I want to thank you for your support over the last 37 years and look forward to the future. I try to answer all of you letters and e-mails personally and enjoy the kind words you send concerning Orlando Vanilla. Muchas Gracias Maria Teresa Ramos Director General