RARE VARIETY: Vanilla pompona is extremely scare as not many farmers grow this bean for profit. The pods are short, thick, and packed with vanilla seeds. Pompona beans smell like a sweet bouquet of exotic flowers and can even have a candy-like scent.
DIRECT TRADE: Voladores Vanilla works collaboratively with small producers in the Totonacapan region of Mexico to ensure fair pay and develop viable growing practices.
TRADITIONALLY GROWN: Pods are hand-picked to ensure maturity and high vanillin content and sun-cured using artisanal methods to achieve maximum flavor.
TRACEABILITY: While V. Pompona does not have a Denomination of Origin like V. Planifolia, these beans are grown alongside our other crops, often for personal use by our vanilla producers.
DETAILS
Vanilla pompona, also known as vanillón (big vanilla), vainilla plátanito (banana vanilla), or vainilla gruesa (thick vanilla), is one of three types of vanilla orchids that produces fruit. Pompona beans are principally cultivated in Mexico but can occasionally be found in other South American countries. Although the beans are becoming increasingly hard to find, they are appreciated and protected by long-time Mexican vanilla growers and prized for personal use.
The pods are short and round and look similar to bananas before they are picked and cured--hence their nickname. In comparison to vanilla planifolia, pompona beans take a longer time to cure because of their thickness, and the result is a shorter and fatter bean. They have a penetrating, exotic aroma akin to fermented fruit with undertones of spice, plums, and an exotic floral sweetness.
Voladores Vanilla works directly with small producers in the Totonacapan region of Mexico, the birthplace of vanilla, to bring you this sweetly aromatic spice. Each vanilla bean is left to ripen on the vine for nine months in order to achieve maximum vanillin content. The pods are sun-cured for several more months using traditional methods to develop the characteristic floral aroma.
The intoxicating scent of wild blossoms makes this vanilla unique and sought after. It can be used in everything from desserts to perfumes to oils.